Extremists have shown us their plan to ban abortion in Kansas. Why don't we believe them?
Anti-abortion demonstrators place signs inside the Statehouse ahead of the Jan. 15, 2025, State of the Judiciary address. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
If there's one lesson to be learned from the anti-abortion movement, it's playing the long game.
Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Roe v. Wade, national anti-abortion extremists slowly chipped away at that constitutional protection. Over decades, they put state and national laws in place that would undermine or outright ban abortion if Roe were ever overturned. They invested endless money into political campaigns and lobbied on judicial selection.
Eventually, they won. Roe was overturned, 50 years of legal precedent was broken, the federal right to an abortion was eliminated, 15 states had trigger laws that immediately banned abortion, and about 1 in 3 people found themselves in states where abortion was inaccessible.
Kansas was the first state to respond, when we rejected the Legislature's proposed constitutional amendment to remove the Kansas right to an abortion. Still, in the aftermath of that August 2022 vote, lawmakers and anti-abortion lobbyists are walking hand in hand passing laws to again chip away at our constitutional freedoms.
Still, much ink is being spilled on why we need to be polite when it comes to anti-abortion laws — that we shouldn't be alarmed when these bills are introduced. We are told that they aren't that bad. Though voters support reproductive rights, even some Democrats have said that the most recent bill to chip away at our constitutional protections wasn't 'the end of the world' and that the tradeoff of our freedom for tax breaks was making 'lemonade out of lemons.'
This makes obvious to me that the stakes are higher than ever, and the risks to our freedoms are dire despite our historic victory defending abortion rights less than three years ago.
Just as we saw happen nationally, we can see this same strategy to overturn our constitutional right to an abortion playing out in Kansas. Multimillion dollar organizations connected to national anti-abortion extremist movements, such as Kansans for Life and Kansas Family Voice, spend an enormous amount of money in our elections. The candidates they fund are beholden to doing their bidding if they want to keep their reelection campaigns funded.
Since these organizations failed to overturn our constitutional protections at the ballot box, they are now focusing their efforts on undermining democracy. They advocate politicizing the judicial selection process. They want judges to be selected by partisan elections so they can buy those seats and control the court. They lobby in favor of voter suppression laws so they can pick their voters. They introduce bills to eliminate campaign finance restrictions so right-wing billionaires can buy judges and politicians.
But even if they put all of those pieces in place, there has to be legal justification for judges to overturn a constitutional right. That's where fetal personhood laws come in.
Fetal personhood laws are about establishing legal precedent that a fetus has more rights than a pregnant person. They do this by adding language throughout different areas of Kansas law to convince the courts that legal personhood begins at the moment of conception. This isn't a secret — national anti-abortion extremists are open and honest with their intention to do this when speaking with supporters.
This isn't a new tactic. In 2025 alone, more than 20 fetal personhood bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country. This isn't an ineffective tactic either, as fetal personhood laws were the legal justification for the notorious Alabama Supreme Court ruling to stop IVF. When national extremists tell us that these laws are about chipping away at our right to an abortion and reproductive health care, why do our lawmakers get away with saying these bills have nothing to do with that?
This year's most prominent fetal personhood bill was originally about making the current court practice of considering pregnancy expenses during child support hearings part of Kansas law. Even bill proponents agree this bill doesn't actually change anything about how the courts would deal with child support expenses.
As Brittany Jones of the anti-abortion Kansas Family Voice said about a previous version of this same bill: It 'does not mandate any method or modify the courts' procedures regarding (child support) in any way. The court is still allowed to use its discretion in making these determinations.'
So if this bill isn't actually about child support, then all that's left is putting anti-abortion language into family law. Still, our elected officials insist that this bill isn't about that, while rejecting amendments to remove the anti-abortion text.
Last week, Democratic Sen. Patrick Schmidt added one of the top legislative priorities of Kansans for Life as an amendment to this dangerous bill, which expands fetal personhood into Kansas tax law. This amendment is essentially the same as previous legislation introduced on behalf of Kansans for Life, giving fetuses tax breaks and state IDs while establishing a registry of fetuses with the Kansas Department of Revenue.
Defenders of this amendment say it doesn't really matter because fetal personhood is already established in the original bill and other parts of Kansas law. I would argue that this amendment is far more harmful than the underlying bill itself, because it requires a government recognition of fetal personhood right now. While the original bill didn't make any changes to how the government operates, this amendment would require entire systems be built within the Kansas Department of Revenue to legally recognize personhood from the moment of conception. They will have to develop policies and procedures to track miscarriages and abortions. They will have to investigate if they suspect a pregnant person of fraud with medical documentation.
How will the paper trail of a pregnancy be kept secure to protect our right to privacy? What if a low-income person doesn't have access to the type of medical care that would provide the correct documentation? Kansas has a shortage of OB-GYNs, with rural communities described as maternal health care deserts. What do those communities do? Is it only mothers who are eligible, or can fathers get this tax break too? The state government will have to resolve all of these issues, and that action further qualifies the legal personhood of the fetus. This might not seem like much to the general public, but this could be a big deal in the eyes of the courts.
Schmidt has since said that he intended this amendment to be a poison pill for the bill. Even so, I can't get over how casual defenders of this amendment and fetal personhood laws are about the threats they pose to our constitutional rights. As a woman and as a Kansan, this enrages me.
I am angry that I have so many men telling me that gambling on my freedom is worth a tax cut. I am angry that the anti-abortion movement is so dishonest and conniving that they can package incredibly dangerous policies as no big deal. I am angry that we have to deal with this at all, after the people of Kansas spoke loud and clear when they rejected the Legislature's constitutional amendment to remove the right to an abortion. Our freedom is not for sale, and our rights are not something we can let politicians play political games with.
Any and every fetal personhood bill is about banning abortion. It is not about child support. It is not about tax cuts. It is not about protecting women or families or children. It is about banning abortion. We the people of Kansas said no before, and we must remain vigilant.
Melissa Stiehler is the advocacy director for Loud Light and Loud Light Civic Action, a Kansas-based nonprofit organization focused on civil and voting rights, government transparency and increasing civic engagement. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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