TOPEKA, Kansas (LifeSiteNews) — Kansas lawmakers have voted to override multiple vetoes of pro-life measures by Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly in the current session, ensuring measures supporting providers of abortion alternatives, punishing those who coerce women into abortions, and improving state gathering of abortion data will become law after all.
The first bill would increase income tax credits for the costs of adoption, establish new tax credits for donations to charitable organizations that operate pregnancy centers, and exempt purchases by pregnancy resource centers and residential maternity facilities from sales taxes. The second would make it a felony to coerce a pregnant woman to have an abortion via physical or financial threats, punishable by a year in prison and fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, or up to 25 years in jail if the coercion attempt includes stalking, blackmail, criminal threat, domestic battery, kidnapping, assault, human trafficking, rape, or other specified acts.
Other measures include requiring abortionists to ask women their primary reason for seeking abortion and submit the answers to the state without identifying information so it can more accurately gauge why women abort, and reauthorization for $2 million in grant funding for pro-life pregnancy centers.
The Kansas City Star reports that the legislature voted resoundingly on Monday evening to override the governor’s vetoes of the abortion survey and coercion measures. The Senate voted 27-10 and the House 84-41 on the first bill; the Senate voted 28-10 and the House 85-40 on the second.
“Because coercing a woman to have an abortion when that is not her choice is always wrong, my colleagues and I are proud to stand together against abuses such as sex trafficking and sexual abuse that accompany abortion coercion and override Laura Kelly’s negligent veto,” declared House GOP leaders in a joint statement.
With the total number of pro-life veto overrides in the current session up to four, Kansans for Life director of government relations Jeanne Gawdun celebrated the development as “democracy in action,” adding that “now is the time to utilize these new tools and get to work helping women and saving as many babies from the profit-driven abortion industry as possible.”
Kelly had justified her vetoes in part by invoking the 2022 defeat of a proposed amendment to clarify that the Kansas Constitution does not contain a “right” to abortion, which she used to cast herself as following the will of the people. However, that amendment did not pass judgment on any specific pro-life laws, nor did it say anything against providing life-affirming options to pregnant women or coercing them into abortion.
Abortion is currently legal in Kansas for any reason up to 22 weeks, and a 2019 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court currently declares that the state constitution protects the murderous practice, meaning that Kansas pro-lifers will be unable to more directly act against abortion until the ruling is reversed or invalidated.
Fourteen states currently ban all or most abortions.