Taking a national stage Thursday, Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer called on the pro-life movement to push forward at a critical time when the president is about to appoint a new Supreme Court justice and the abortion battle moves to the states.
“I want to encourage you to double down,” Colyer told several hundred people at the National Right to Life Convention in Overland Park. “I want you to think about what you’ve been doing. Things are starting to happen. Your prayers matter. They make a difference.”
Colyer exhorted abortion-rights opponents to take up the fight at statehouses across the country even as President Donald Trump appoints a new justice to replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy.
“The battle is bigger than all of us,” Colyer said.
“Not only do we have to do it in Washington, each and every one of us needs to take this fight for life to every state capitol in the United States of America.”
While Kennedy’s departure from the high court bodes well for the pro-life movement, Colyer cautioned that a new front is opening up for abortion-rights opponents.
“With that potential progress – and it’s still just potential progress – the battlefield for life is going to transition to the states,” Colyer said.
Colyer singled out a state Supreme Court case that soon could decide whether abortion is enshrined in the Kansas Constitution.
Three years ago, a Shawnee County judge blocked a first-in-the-nation law that banned some dilation-and-evacuation abortion procedures.
The law barred a physician from using forceps, clamps or other instruments to remove a living fetus from the womb in pieces.
Abortion opponents – like Colyer – call it a “dismemberment abortion.” Supporters say it’s the safest and most common abortion procedure in the second trimester of pregnancy.
In that case, the judge found that the Kansas Constitution protected abortion.
The Kansas case is expected to set off a trend of abortion-rights supporters increasingly going to state courts across the country if the U.S. Supreme Court – with a new conservative justice – moves to limit abortion.
For instance, a legal challenge to Iowa’s law banning an abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected was filed in state court. It’s already been temporarily blocked.
In the Iowa case, the fetal heartbeat law was challenged because it violated women’s rights to due process, their rights to liberty, safety and happiness, and their rights to equal protection under the state Constitution.
While Colyer didn’t mention it Thursday, a Kansas Supreme Court decision in favor of abortion is likely to set off a battle over a constitutional amendment that would give the Legislature the ability to decide abortion issues.
Colyer rejected the idea that the state Constitution protects abortion rights. He has already indicated he would support a constitutional amendment if the Kansas Supreme Court finds the right to an abortion in the state Constitution.
“Kansas is a state that values life,” Colyer said. “It’s in our state Constitution. It’s in our legislation. It’s part of the very fabric of what it means to be a Kansan.”
