Kansas sees surge of interest in anti-abortion amendment after Roe is overturned

OVERLAND PARK — It is a tale of two cities in the Johnson County suburbs.

On both ends of the seemingly endless Kansas City metro area, opponents and supporters of a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution are trying to reach voters to state their case on the hotly debated issue.

The two groups have commonalities. They both have had to deal with historically hot weather as their door knocking ramps up.

Both sides have spent millions in television advertisements and campaign activities in recent weeks.

And opponents and advocates for the amendment alike are attempting to use the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, striking down the longstanding Roe v. Wade decision protecting abortion rights nationally, to motivate their supporters into turning out for the Aug. 2 vote.

As volunteers canvass houses here, it is clear some voters were engaged and could nearly read back the talking points to volunteers.

One was attempting to urge his daughter to vote on the amendment from Malaysia, where she was on an internship. Another was so passionate about sex education that she gave condoms to her grandchildren.

More: Kansas voters first to weigh in on abortion post-Roe v. Wade as procedure remains legal

For Laura Robertson in Overland Park, the amendment was a topic of conversation among her friend group and she said she already was planning on voting no.

The decision, however, has created a new current of anxiety about what comes next for Kansas.

More: Kansas abortion amendment debate is misleading. Here's a Value Them Both fact check.

"I feel kind of gutted," Robertson said the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. "Everything the previous generation worked so hard for. ... It's just a letdown and hard to raise a daughter in this climate."

A few miles away in Olathe, Mike Holegland is a staunch "yes" vote. His family, however is sympathetic to the "no" side.

He doesn't push the issue with them, noting it is unlikely he is able to change any minds. But he did say he is heartened to see how many pro-amendment signs are cropping up in his neighborhood since the Dobbs decision.

"Fifty years of something that people were opposed to, now it is up in play for us (in Kansas)," Holegland said. "It gets people kind of excited and invested."

Other voters have little familiarity with the amendment, which will shape the future not just in Kansas but across the region. Some, for instance, believed the amendment would ban abortion, which it doesn't directly do.

Instead the vote is on whether the Kansas Constitution confers a right to an abortion. A "yes" vote would give the Legislature significantly more power to restrict or even outlaw the practice, though they would still need to vote to do so. A "no" vote, meanwhile, would preserve the status quo.

More: Roe v. Wade was overturned. How does Kansas abortion change after Supreme Court ruling?

Kansas will be the first state in the country where voters will weigh in on abortion following the Dobbs decision.

Engagement and voter registration has ratcheted up, with both sides believing the increased attention will benefit them.

But as the country moves into uncharted territory, it remains to be seen how the seismic shift will affect the vote's outcome.

"I don't know what's going to happen," said Patrick Miller, a professor of political science at the University of Kansas. "I think people who get paid to talk and tell you what's going to happen are very competent, (saying) that their side is going to come out on top. But I think they're being paid to say that."

More: Abortion-rights protesters in Kansas view Roe v. Wade fall as call to action for Aug. 2

Kansas counties report surge in voter registration, interest

Despite an expected influx of out-of-state women coming to Kansas after Roe being overturned, abortions aren't necessarily yet on the rise.

At Trust Women in Wichita, one of the state's four clinics, demand has been high for months already due to restrictions in Texas and Oklahoma.

Zachary Gingrich-Gaylord, a spokesperson for Trust Women, said the clinic is still getting hundreds of phone calls per day. But he notes those are a fraction of the demand among women who are unable to travel to Kansas for an abortion.

"We are very aware that we are not seeing everybody who needs this care," he said. "And that's what really stands out to us. The phone calls that we can't get to or the appointments that are never made, right. What is coming in is going to be very difficult."

There is no doubt, however that interest from voters on the issue is reaching a fever pitch.

Statewide, there was an increase of 14,678 registered voters in Kansas in the two weeks after Roe was overturned.

Shawnee County Elections Director Andrew Howell reported going from around 50 voters per day registering for the first time or changing their address or party affiliation to around 200 after the ruling.

"Every primary, there's usually quite a bit of interest and people are already ramping up," Howell said. "But we saw a big jump immediately after that."

In Johnson County, Election Commissioner Fred Sherman told the Shawnee Mission Post said his office was hit with over 1,000 email or phone requests for advanced mail ballots and voter registration information in the days after the ruling.

The day after the ruling, the Johnson County Democratic Party office was doing a brisk business in signs, with many voters saying they hadn't been as engaged on the abortion issue previously.

Susan Schaible, a Prairie Village resident and self-proclaimed progressive, was one of the voters who came out to get a sign.

She said she was committed to doing what she could to minimize the impact of the Supreme Court ruling but acknowledged the Kansas amendment wasn't always the most straightforward to discuss with friends and neighbors.

"I think its confusing, even with a lot of voters," she said.

More: As Roe v. Wade decision looms, Kansas abortion amendment opponents try to gain traction

Outside groups step up involvement in the primary election

Outside groups have begun wading into the race as well.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America announced in late June they were spending $1.3 million to boost canvassing in support of the amendment.

To date, teams of college students from across the country have knocked on over 150,000 doors, said Ella Witt, national student director for the group.

The effort comes on top of a deluge of television ads in the past two weeks on both sides, with spending already into the millions of dollars.

For the college students, most of whom hail from out-of-state, it is the first time many have been to Kansas.

Katie Kenlein, a native of Washington state and a student at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, said she and her fellow canvassers were energized when they learned the Sunflower State would be their destination.

"We all really think there is a lot at stake in this election," Kenlein said. "This is where we want to be."

More: SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade renews pressure on Kansas same-sex marriage ban, sodomy law

Miller said that even if engagement surges amount amendment opponents, its supporters still have the baked in advantage of having the vote alongside the August partisan primary, which has had, on average, 58% lower turnout over the last 12 years than the November general election.

But he noted the decision does make the stakes more real for voters.

Top Republican legislators have been coy on if they will seek an abortion ban, such as model language proposed by a prominent national anti-abortion group.

And groups supporting the amendment in Kansas have argued they are interested in reinstating regulations struck down by the court, rather than pursue new restrictions.

But with abortion completely banned in Missouri, even in cases of rape or incest, and at least one hospital temporarily suspending the prescription of Plan B as a response, Miller said it will be easy for voters to envision where the debate might be headed in Kansas.

"That abstractness is maybe getting less abstract," he said.

Campaign materials in support of the amendment have focused on restrictions proponents believe could be targeted by abortion rights groups in the wake of a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision which interpreted the state constitution as conferring a right to an abortion.

This includes a heavy focus on banning late-term abortions, even though abortions after 22 weeks gestation are already barred in most cases and only 3.8% of all 2021 abortions came between 17 and 21 weeks.

Still, Witt said their message was resonating with individuals on both sides of the debate.

"We had one woman who said, 'No, this is a vote no house' and we saw her change once she had the right information," Witt said.

More: Top Kansas Republicans won't say if they will push model abortion ban

‘I want to have a conversation about people’

For Mandy Culbertson, the campaign is an intensely personal one.

At the age of 19, Culbertson, then in college, had an abortion. Her tale is a relatively common one — her contraception simply didn't work as intended.

Research from the Guttmacher Institute, a policy and research group favoring abortion rights, found that roughly half of women used contraception the month they became pregnant.

But that doesn't make it any easier, Culbertson said, adding she didn't tell her parents until months later, even though she learned of her pregnancy while on a family vacation.

Even when she told friends, she recalled one acquaintance, a staunch Catholic, lambasting her for the decision and attempting to ostracize her from her friend group.

"People who are in a situation like need don't often speak out, because they don't feel like it's a justified reason," she said. "Or they feel like they'll be judged or shamed."

More: Kansas town reverses course, will allow residents to register to vote after lawsuit threat

In recent years, she has become more assertive in telling her story, even working for Planned Parenthood of the Great Plains for a time. And whenever she does so, Culbertson said other women come out of the woodwork to share their own experiences.

Door knocking with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, the largest group advocating against the amendment, she said has been a chance to share a more personal side of the issue with voters.

Once residents are more informed about the reality of the abortion debate, she said, the "divide isn't actually all that great."

"I think that when you approach conversations, actually with empathy, and we start thinking about real people, instead of political talking points, you can have a very different conversation with people," Culbertson said. "I want to have a conversation about people, and how do we support people. And how do we care for people. And how does abortion play into that."

Andrew Bahl is a senior statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at abahl@gannett.com or by phone at 443-979-6100.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas sees interest surge on abortion constitutional amendment vote