Don’t let Kansas repeat Texas’ disastrous war on women with its failed abortion ban | Opinion
I’ve lived in Kansas for 35 years, and for most of that time, the state has been a wonderful place to raise three kids and build my career as a leader in community health care. Through my work, I’ve seen firsthand how important access to community health care is, first as executive director of the E.C. Tyree clinic in northeast Wichita, and currently as co-executive director of Trust Women, providing reproductive health care to Kansans and many other people from across the region.
For the past 2 1/2 years — since Texas banned abortion with S.B. 8 in 2021 — I have seen with my own eyes the devastating impact of these draconian laws on communities across the region as people from over a dozen states have traveled to Kansas clinics to receive lifesaving care they were denied in their own states.
People are struggling to make it to our clinic. Only some can overcome the myriad economic and legal barriers to obtain care. Hundreds of people each month are being forced to carry pregnancies against their will. Folks are scrambling to get appointments in protected states. Women are being forced into medical risk against their will — sometimes endangering their life and fertility.
It’s not right, and hearing their stories makes me even more grateful that my fellow Kansans overwhelmingly demanded that Kansas continue to protect our rights to bodily autonomy and access to abortion care. Some examples of what happens when personal freedoms are stripped away:
In Texas, Samantha Casiano learned at 20 weeks that her baby would be stillborn or die shortly after birth. In March, she delivered. Her baby struggled to breathe for four hours before dying. She testified in court: “All she could do was fight to try to get air. I had to watch my daughter go from being pink to red to purple. From being warm to cold,” said Casiano. “I just kept telling myself and my baby that I’m so sorry that this had to happen to you.”
Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a young woman living in a maternal health care desert in southern Texas, died after becoming sick while pregnant, and unable to access abortion care that would have saved her life.
Teen pregnancies in Texas are rising after years of decline.
Finally, the staggering 26,000 rape-related pregnancies that occurred in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and nearly 5,000 in Oklahoma, speak directly to the lie that these bans will provide “exceptions” for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant woman. It simply isn’t true.
We’ve heard from groups such as Kansans for Life about their plans to “focus on policies that actually save lives,” but their actions year after year show they don’t care about legislation that builds healthy communities. They would rather take a page from Texas’ playbook, where infant mortality is up 10%, and OB-GYN residency applicants are down 10.5% already. For any Kansas lawmakers who care about maternal and infant mortality, please pay attention.
Introducing anti-abortion rights legislation is a rite of passage for right-leaning lawmakers, regardless of the bills’ chances of passage. Our state’s strong constitutional protections mean that many of these bills are dead on arrival or have little to no chance of withstanding judicial scrutiny. Our leaders must look at what is happening in neighboring states.
On behalf of all Kansans who value personal liberty and the health and safety of all our communities — and on behalf of Samantha and Yeniifer in Texas, and Brittany Poolaw and Jaci Statton in Oklahoma, and thousands of women and families suffering under abortion bans — we urge lawmakers to reject the host of anti-choice bills already introduced this legislative session.
Shaunta James-Boyd is co-executive director of Trust Women, a reproductive health care clinic and reproductive justice advocate with locations in Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
