Kansas Attorney General Appeals Ruling Striking Down Ban on Dismemberment Abortions

State   |   Dave Andrusko   |   Jul 8, 2021   |   6:33PM   |   Topeka, Kansas

NRL News Today readers are very familiar with the 2019 decision by the Kansas Supreme Court in which the justices found a “fundamental right to  abortion” in Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights. 

Earlier this year, a lower court judge used that decision to obliterate a ban on the dismemberment of living unborn children. Given the reach of the state’s highest court in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt , potentially all pro-life legislation is subject to reversal.

In response Kansans for Life successfully pressed the legislature to approve a constitutional amendment—the “Value Them Both” amendment—that will be on the ballot in August 2022. It declares there is no state constitutional right to an abortion.

On Wednesday Attorney General Eric Schmidt said he will appeal the District Court ‘s decision to strike down the state’s ban on the dismemberment of living unborn babies– Senate Bill 95– enacted in 2015.

HELP LIFENEWS SAVE BABIES FROM ABORTION! Please help LifeNews.com with a year-end donation!

AG Schmidt’s office explained

In April, Shawnee County District Court Judge Teresa L. Watson found the law violated the Kansas Constitution, relying on a Kansas Supreme Court decision in an earlier stage of this case that found a “fundamental right to abortion” in Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights. In her ruling, Judge Watson noted that while she disagreed with the Kansas Supreme Court’s legal reasoning and conclusions in that case, she was bound by its decision. Schmidt said that, among other legal issues, he will ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its interpretation of the state constitution from the prior decision.

The Center for Reproductive Rights early in the court case sought and secured a preliminary injunction from Judge Larry D. Hendricks, preventing the law from ever being enforced.

The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act is a law that prohibits the horrific abortion method in which a living unborn child in her mother’s womb is ripped apart into pieces by an abortionist using sharp metal tools.

As Kansans for Life wrote in December 2015

Judge Hendricks erred in adopting, without question, the legal claim of abortionists that the Kansas pre-Civil War state Constitution be newly interpreted to find a right to abortion that is broader and more extreme than even what the U.S Supreme Court recognizes.

It was a valid act of the Kansas legislature to curb dismemberment abortions, both legally and morally.

The claims of abortionists ring hollow in this age of corrective fetal surgery in the womb, where it is the standard practice of pediatric anesthesiologists to treat unborn children as capable of  experiencing acute pain.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in his National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.