Kansas abortion clinics could take on more patients in Missouri ban fallout
The Planned Parenthood office on June 24, 2022, in St. Louis. (Tessa Weinberg/Missouri Independent)
TOPEKA — A total abortion ban is back in Missouri, and for Kansas clinics, that could mean added strain on a system that already serves as a regional safe haven.
Two recent rulings from a lower court judge allowed Missourians to receive abortion care in major cities, blocking years of restrictions implemented by state lawmakers. Those rulings came after voter approval of a constitutional amendment in November enshrining reproductive freedom in the state constitution.
All of that was undone in a two-page ruling Tuesday from Chief Justice Mary Russell of the Missouri Supreme Court, which ordered Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang to vacate the December and February decisions and reevaluate the case, restoring a ban on abortions and facility licensing restrictions.
Missourians have a constitutional right to reproductive freedom in name only, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Great Plains. She called the Tuesday ruling surprising but added that the organization is accustomed to having to pivot because of court cases and politics.
Planned Parenthood Great Plains has clinics on both sides of the state line, so the impacts of the court's ruling are widespread for the organization. On the Missouri side, appointment times are being canceled, and care will become scarcer if the ruling remains in place, Wales said. On the Kansas side, the ruling means adding more appointment times and stretching providers to offer care to an entire region.
Kansas abortion clinics serve mostly out-of-state patients, which has been attributed to its strong reproductive freedoms and its proximity to Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, where residents must seek care away from home.
'Having so few providers to support an entire region is not a sustainable system,' Wales said.
The ruling is a continuation of notoriously difficult-to-access care in Missouri, said Isabel Guarnieri, communications director for the Guttmacher Institute, a health policy research and advocacy organization.
'As of now, the total ban is back in effect, along with other restrictions that force patients to wait and receive counseling before obtaining an abortion and (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws that make it difficult for clinics to operate,' Guarnieri said in a Wednesday press release.
In 2023, with Missouri's ban in effect, almost 3,000 Missourians traveled to Kansas for an abortion. More than 8,700 traveled to Illinois. Wales said Planned Parenthood had been hopeful that Missouri's restoration of access to abortion could have offered Kansas clinics breathing room.
'We know that the demand for the region outpaces what we can provide,' she said.
And that only applies to those who can access care. Without local abortion access, Wales said, people without the ability to travel for care will be left behind.
Missouri lawmakers intend to put another ballot measure before voters, likely in the 2026 general election, that would overturn the November amendment establishing reproductive freedom in the state constitution.
Kansas Republicans have taken a more roundabout approach in presenting to voters an August 2026 referendum on the state Supreme Court justice selection process. Electing state Supreme Court justices by popular vote could give the majority a conservative tilt, paving the way for the reversal of decisions that protect abortion, public school funding and legislative districts, among others.
Attorneys general from Kansas, Missouri and Idaho are involved in a federal lawsuit seeking to rewrite federal prescribing guidelines for medication abortions. The Trump administration has asked the court to dismiss the suit.
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