The Kansas Supreme Court on July 5 struck down two laws regulating abortion, reaffirming its stance that the state’s constitution confers a right to the procedure.
The court found in two separate cases that a 2011 law imposing strict licensure requirements on abortion facilities and a 2015 ban on dilation and evacuation abortions infringed on a woman’s constitutional right to personal autonomy.
The majority opinions cited the court’s controversial 2019 holding that the “equal and inalienable natural rights” established under Section 1 of the Kansas Bill of Rights include the right to personal autonomy and, by extension, abortion.
The justices’ decision comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision overturning the national right to abortion that was created by its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade….