Abortions in Kansas grew by thousands last year, driven by surge of out-of-state patients

The number of abortions in Kansas increased by several thousand last year, driven entirely by a surge of out-of-state residents as the state became a stronghold of abortion access in the Great Plains.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released the state’s 2022 abortion statistics on Friday, the eve of the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision removing the federal right to abortion. The ruling, called Dobbs, reversed the dedadeslong abortion protections established by Roe v. Wade and allowed Missouri and other states to quickly enact bans.

In August, Kansas voters rejected a measure that would have allowed legislators to ban the procedure. The vote kept in place a decision by the Kansas Supreme Court that the state constitution protects the right to end a pregnancy — likely cementing abortion rights in the state for years to come.

Last year, 12,318 abortions were performed in Kansas, according to KDHE’s preliminary report, up from 7,849 in 2021 — an increase of 57%. The growth occurred entirely in abortions among out-of-state residents, which grew by 4,563.

Kansas residents obtained fewer abortions in 2022 than the year before. The number of Kansas residents receiving abortions dropped by 94 to 3,843.

Texas residents accounted for the largest number of abortions after Kansas residents, with 2,978. Missouri residents accounted for 2,883 abortions, Oklahoma for 2,206, Arkansas for 405, and Louisiana for 88. Every other state had a dozen or fewer.

“This reinforces the heartbreaking reality of abortion bans: access to care is now very far away for many people across the region, when it should be available in their communities,” Anamarie Rebori Simmons, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement.

“Amid the new reality of reproductive health care, Kansans continue to overwhelmingly support a person’s right to make their own health care decisions. Kansas values fundamental rights and provides all people a place to get needed health care even when their own states do not.”

The number of abortions in Kansas in 2022 was the most since 2001, according to the report. More out-of-state residents received abortions in Kansas than at any time since at least 1981, the first year listed in the report.

“As we predicted, Kansas has seen a massive increase in the number vulnerable women being intentionally funneled to abortion facilities in Kansas,” said Danielle Underwood, a spokesperson for Kansans for Life. “Behind each of these statistics is an industry eager to pad its bottom line, a woman who has been pushed to feel she has no other option, and a child who will never blow out her first birthday candle.”

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment didn’t comment beyond releasing the abortion report.

Zach Fletcher, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, said in a statement that “like most Kansans, as we saw last August, Governor Kelly continues to believe that women have a right to make their own private health care decisions.”

Even though Missouri was the first state in the nation to enact a near-total ban last year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, 575 fewer Missouri residents received abortions in Kansas in 2022 than in 2021. By contrast, the number of Texas residents traveling to Kansas for an abortion soared by 2,745.

Representatives from Planned Parenthood have said clinics in Kansas — and also in Illinois — have been inundated with patients from other states that have squeezed the ability of Missouri residents to quickly obtain abortions in Kansas.

As racial and ethnic makeup of abortion patients in Kansas also shifted over the past year. The percentage of patients who were white fell from 48% in 2021 to 37% last year, while the percentage of Hispanic patients grew from 17% to 28%. The percentage of Black patients dropped slightly, from 26% to 24.5%.

“I have a hard time believing that the majority of Kansans want our state to be the Midwest’s destination for abortion, but unfortunately that’s what we’ve become,” Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said in a statement.

“To see such an extreme spike in abortions in our state is truly heartbreaking, but it also strengthens our commitment to support mothers and their babies throughout an unplanned pregnancy.”

The 2022 report comes amid a new legal fight over abortion restrictions in Kansas. Abortion providers filed a lawsuit in Johnson County District Court earlier this month challenging long-standing rules governing counseling for abortion patients, as well as a new law requiring medication abortion patients be told the procedure is “reversible” if they have taken only the first pill in the regimen.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, has agreed that the state temporarily will not enforce the new law until a judge decides whether to temporarily block the law. The agreement means the requirements will likely not go into effect as scheduled on July 1.

Abortion providers are asking the court to block the enforcement of requirements in Kansas law that physicians meet with patients and provide detailed information to patients about their pregnancy 24 hours before the procedure; requirements that physicians listen to the fetus’ heartbeat 30 minutes prior to an abortion; and requirements that providers, without evidence, post information in their clinics and websites that abortions could increase their risk of breast cancer and premature birth in future pregnancies.