‘Raise your voice’: Abortion rights protesters gather in Kansas City following Roe ruling

Protesters mobilized Friday in Kansas City, just hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Missouri ended the vast majority of legal abortions in the state.

Shortly after 5 p.m., demonstrators gathered at Mill Creek Park to express outrage at the court’s sweeping ruling. At its peak, the crowd swelled to around 500 people.

Organizers led chants: “My body my choice, raise your voice” and “Keep your hands off our bodies.”

Some protesters shared personal stories about getting an abortion.

Anamarie Rebori Simmons, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said she hopes the anger and frustration turn into action.

“To be together right now, in this moment, I think is so helpful for people who don’t know what to do and don’t know where to turn,” Simmons said.

Mimije Ninaz, an organizer with the Reale Justice Network, which hosted the event with the support of Planned Parenthood, said organizers had been expecting the landmark reversal for weeks.

“Part of it was to stay as poised as the trigger laws are,” Ninaz said. “Because we were already entrenched in the work, we were able to amass this sort of power literally overnight.”

Minutes after the nation’s highest court struck down the landmark 1973 ruling, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt activated the “trigger ban” clause of the state’s 2019 abortion law, effectively prohibiting the procedure for all Missourians except in cases of a medical emergency.

While abortion was already severely restricted in Missouri prior to Friday’s decision, State Rep. Emily Weber, D-Kansas City, noted that the state’s current ban removed previous exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.

Weber, who spoke publicly during Friday’s event, told The Star during a brief interview that she and fellow Democrats would continue work to expand abortion access, but acknowledged that task would be an uphill battle in the Republican-dominated Legislature.

“We will continue fighting, we’re never going to stop,” she said, adding: “There’s 49 of us. There’s only so much we can do.”

Meantime, most Kansas City residents seeking abortion won’t be immediately affected by the ruling: Both of the abortion clinics serving the metro are on the Kansas side of the state line, where abortion remains legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy for the time being.

Abortion in Missouri and Kansas

Led by Republican majorities in the House and Senate, Missouri lawmakers in 2019 enacted a so-called trigger law with the anticipation that the decision would one day be reversed. It was signed by Gov. Mike Parson and included a provision that required an announcement from the governor or attorney general to put the ban in place.

The decision overturning Roe was highly expected after a draft opinion was leaked to POLITICO in May. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who is running for U.S. Senate, vowed to release the necessary document barring abortion statewide once a decision was handed down, a promise he followed through with Friday morning.

Meanwhile, across the state line in Kansas, the Supreme Court decision marks the beginning of a new era of intensifying debate over the right to an abortion.

A ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court in 2019 found that the procedure is one protected by the state’s constitution. But the Republican-led General Assembly followed suit last year by passing a constitutional amendment that would remove the right, which heads to Kansas voters in August.

A cadre of people at the protest on Friday in Kansas City chanted “August 2nd, we vote no.”

‘Reversing in time’

Among the gatherers in Mill Creek Park on Friday was Shyanne Long. She brought a small wagon filled with water bottles and snacks for attendees, followed by her nieces Anna, 5, and Addie, 8.

“We are teaching them now that nobody gets to control our bodies,” said Long, 25, of Edgerton.

Asked for her take on the Supreme Court’s decision, Long said she was still shocked by the event. She said the news made her feel as if the country is “reversing in time.”

“Women have fought so hard to change things in history, and now we’re reversing almost 100 years back,” Long said, adding: “Women are not objects, we’re not property. And we should have a choice. No matter what your gender, no matter anything, you should have a choice with your own body and what you get to do with it.”

As event speakers made statements over P.A., and demonstrators walked past, 36-year-old Lauren Hills stood beside her daughter, Ursa, near a sign-making station set up in the shade near the Mills Creek Park fountain. She stroked the girl’s ponytail as the 4-year-old carefully wrote, in red marker, a sign that read: “Rights for women.”

“She thought of that slogan all by herself,” Lauren Hills, of Kansas City, told The Star as the girl displayed the sign with a beaming smile.

Over the past few days, Lauren Hills said the news — while not entirely unexpected — was very upsetting, saying she believes we should live in a country where “other people’s religious ideals don’t dictate what I’m supposed to do with my body.” She also said she hopes her daughter will be able to grow up in a world where she can make her own decisions.

“And have the freedom to do so,” added Claudette Hills, the girl’s grandmother.