(Will be updated as warranted)
A high-powered conservative legal group with deep pockets has joined Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach in defending a state law that requires abortion providers to give women certain information about the procedure.
The Alliance for Defending Freedom – compared to a conservative ACLU – has been enlisted by Kobach to help defend against a lawsuit seeking to block a new state law requiring physicians to notify women that their drug-induced abortion can be reversed.
The lawsuit goes much further, asking a judge to throw out the state’s entire informed-consent law known as the Women’s Right to Know Act, which sets out detailed information that’s required to be provided to women before undergoing the procedure.
A spokesperson for Kobach said ADF is not being paid to handle the case, although under former Attorney General Derek Schmidt the state paid out at least $900,000 defending the state’s abortion laws.
The entrance of ADF into the case sets up a legal battle between organizations on both sides that have a wealth of resources to bring to the court case.
Alliance for Defending Freedom raised more than $62 million in 2019-20, according to its latest tax filing.
Meanwhile, the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents abortion providers in the lawsuit, raised $61 million in 2021-22, according to federal tax records.
“When activists sue to overturn our validly passed laws, Kansans deserve the best defense possible from the best attorneys they can get,” said Dan Burrows, chief deputy attorney general.
“On this issue, there’s probably not a better set of lawyers in the country,” Burrows said in a statement.
First enacted in 1997 and amended six times since, the state’s informed-consent law requires physicians who perform abortions to provide information about the procedure to women 24 hours before undergoing an abortion.
The state’s 24-hour waiting period could be eliminated if the lawsuit is successful.
The group on Friday filed a brief in the case, which will be heard in Johnson County District Court. Oral arguments are set for Aug. 8.
“Kansas, like every other state, has authority to regulate the medical profession as part of its inherent powers to preserve the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens,” the brief argues.
“It is women, not self-interested abortionists…, who will suffer harm if this court enjoins the reasonable informed consent requirements” of the law.
Among other things, a physician must inform the woman that she has the right to view the ultrasound image of the fetus and listen to the heartbeat. The physician also must describe the risks related to the abortion procedure.
The lawsuit labels the state’s informed-consent law as a “biased counseling scheme.”
The plaintiffs say doctors are required to provide patients with “inaccurate state-mandated information, including medically unfounded statements that abortion poses a ‘risk of premature birth in future pregnancies’ and a ‘risk of breast cancer.’”
The law “singles out abortion care for medically unnecessary additional regulation that delays and impedes access to abortion, stigmatizes and demeans people seeking abortion, and perpetuates the discriminatory view that pregnant people are uniquely in need of the
state’s paternalistic intervention into their health care,” the lawsuit said.
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Alliance for Defending Freedom not only helped overturn Roe v. Wade at the U.S. Supreme Court, but has already had a presence in Kansas.
Most recently, ADF was involved in a case in Geary County where it challenged a Kansas school district policy that barred teachers from revealing to parents that a student had requested to be referred to by a name or pronoun “inconsistent with their biological sex.”
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a former teacher punished for violating a policy requiring teachers to use the preferred names and pronouns of transgender students. The school district ultimately paid the teacher $95,000 for damages and attorney’s fees.
The ADF also brought a lawsuit against Gov. Laura Kelly over her executive order limiting mass gatherings at church services in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The ADF represented two churches asking a judge to block the state from enforcing the executive order and declare it unconstitutional.
Th group also was at the center of a dispute at the University of Kansas last year that led to state Supreme Court Justice Caleb Stegall severing his ties with the university’s law school.
Stegall said he would not renew his teaching relationship with the school after a blowup over the Federalist Society’s announcement it would host an attorney from the ADF at a lunchtime event last October.
While the group generally advocates for religious liberties, it has been criticized in some quarters for being hostile to LGBTQ rights and is viewed as a “hate group.”
Five years ago, Newsweek profiled the organization, comparing it to a conservative variation of the American Civil Liberties Union, a point that some hotly debate.
The magazine reported the organization had a network of 3,200 attorneys nationally and $48 million in funding.
As of June 30, 2020, the organization reported assets of $42.8 million, federal tax records show. It reported receiving $62.6 million in grants and contributions from July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2020.
Meanwhile the Center for Reproductive Rights reported assets of $80.7 million as of June 30, 2021. It reported raising $61 million from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021.
