The Legislature’s move to overhaul the state nursing board is complicating a legal challenge to a state law prohibiting advanced practice registered nurses from prescribing abortion-inducing medications.
The state has filed a motion to delay proceedings in the case after the Legislature passed a law that reformed the state nursing board after lawmakers received complaints about the agency’s heavy-handed approach to enforcement.
The state’s lawyers said the board is in such disarray – four of 11 board seats are filled and two agency officials named in the lawsuit are now gone – that it can’t defend itself currently.
The nursing board had been under intense scrutiny since last summer, when the House government oversight committee started examining how the agency carries out enforcement.
There were complaints that the agency pressured nurses into signing consent orders acknowledging they were guilty of unprofessional conduct because of a clerical mistake that didn’t threaten patient health and safety.
The lawsuit, brought by Aria Medical Clinic of Wichita in April 2025, was filed against the state nursing board, the board’s president and the board’s executive president.
The lawsuit contests a state law and regulation that prevents advanced practice registered nurses — known as APRNs — from prescribing abortion medications.
The lawsuit says that APRNs under Kansas law are otherwise fully authorized to prescribe a wide range of medications, including controlled substances and the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, for a variety of health conditions.
Lawyers for the state last week filed a motion to delay all proceedings in the case, saying that the board is in “a state of institutional upheaval.”
They noted that the board has lost a majority of its members and lacks the quorum required under Kansas law to conduct official business.
They also said that two of the named defendants in the lawsuit – the board president and executive administrator – are no longer with the agency.
“In practical terms, the state defendants do not have a functioning client capable of directing this litigation,” the state’s lawyers argued.
“This situation is temporary and not of defendants’ making; legislation already enacted establishes a clear timeline for the board’s reconstitution.
“Plaintiffs, who did not seek preliminary injunctive relief and have not pursued expeditious prosecution of this case, will suffer no cognizable prejudice from a brief, structured stay.”
The board’s current operational continuity rests with Adrian Guerrero, the agency’s director of operations, who has been appointed by the board to handle operational matters in the interim.
Guerrero does not hold an administrator title, which requires a nursing degree, and his authority is operational rather than clinical or regulatory, the state argues.
Before it lost its quorum, the board delegated certain administrative authority to an operations committee made up of three remaining board members, but that committee was not delegated authority to direct the lawsuit or make litigation decisions, court records show.
The state points out that the nursing board’s membership is expected to undergo wholesale turnover in the coming months.
It is expected that by July 1, the remaining board members may term out under the bill approved by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor.
At that point, temporary board members may be appointed subject to Senate confirmation.
Those temporary members would then be removed effective Jan. 1, when the incoming governor selects a new, permanent board, the motion states.
“This timeline creates significant uncertainty over the next 12 months as to the composition and leadership of the institution that is the primary defendant in this action,” the state argues.
The state’s lawyers say that the plaintiffs will not be hurt by delaying the proceeding, adding that they didn’t seek an injunction from the beginning.
The state’s lawyers have requested an expedited briefing schedule on their motion, something that District Judge Teresa Watson denied.
The motion to delay the proceeding will be decided after the briefing on the motion is completed.
Last December, Watson denied the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.
She dismissed claims raised by the state arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, that they weren’t suffering irreparable harm and that no abortion patients joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.
Aria opened its Wichita clinic in January 2023 with a business model that called for providers to see a high volume of patients, with the goal to schedule patients within seven days of a request.
The clinic said that the demand for abortions was so high that it struggled to find enough doctors to cover appointments.
The lawsuit said that APRNs under Kansas law are fully authorized to prescribe a wide range of medications.
But the lawsuit said that when it came to abortion, APRNs were barred from prescribing medication used to safely terminate a pregnancy despite their training and clinical skills.
The lawsuit says that patients at Aria Medical Clinic, which brought the lawsuit, “face unnecessary and harmful barriers” because of the restrictions.
“The restrictions delay or deny access to timely medication abortion by requiring that patients be seen only by physicians, even when qualified APRNs…are available to provide care,” the lawsuit said.
“This has led to longer wait times, increased travel burdens, and in some cases, the complete loss of the option for medication abortion.”
Kansans for Life said the lawsuit puts women at risk.
“This cruel lawsuit is designed to further loosen medical safeguards over abortion franchises and puts women at greater risk,” said Jeanne Gawdun, director for government relations for KFL.
“A recent study by The Ethics and Public Policy Center shows that more than 1 in 10 women who take the abortion pill require emergency-room treatment — underscoring why physician-only protections matter,” Gawdun said.
“We strongly support Kansas laws that put women’s health above the abortion industry’s profits,” she said.
The lawsuit drew on findings from the landmark Kansas Supreme Court case from 2019, arguing that the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights protects an “inalienable natural right of personal autonomy, which includes the right to abortion.”
The lawsuit claimed that the law violated their patients’ rights of bodily autonomy and self-determination as well as their equal protection rights under the Kansas Constitution.
The lawsuit argued that the law – and a subsequent rule – restricting APRNs from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs delayed or burdened pregnant women seeking medication abortions in Kansas.
The plaintiffs said the restrictions require patients to travel longer distances as well as impose financial, work and child care burdens that result in delayed treatment.
The clinic also said the law violated the equal protection guarantees of the Kansas Constitution by treating women who seek the drugs used for medication abortions differently than women who need the same drugs for other purposes.
The clinic and the advanced practice registered nurse say that their patients “have been, and are continuing to be, irreparably harmed” by the violation of their constitutional rights.
