‘Huge Victory for the Pro-Choice Side’: Kansas Voters Reject Ballot Measure Seeking to Remove Abortion Rights in State Constitution
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Kansas voters spoke loudly Tuesday by voting “No” on a ballot measure that would have removed language in the state constitution protecting abortion rights.
In Tuesday’s elections, Kansans went to the polls to decide whether to protect the state’s existing constitutional right to an abortion. It was the first such vote on the matter since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The Kansas No State Constitutional Right to Abortion and Legislative Power to Regulate Abortion Amendment was roundly defeated.
Voters turned down the measure, Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report projected just 86 minutes after the polls closed. He called it “a huge victory for the pro-choice side.”
I’ve seen enough: in a huge victory for the pro-choice side, the Kansas constitutional amendment to remove protections of abortion rights fails.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 3, 2022
The results affirm abortion as a constitutional right in Kansas which lawmakers cannot take away, NBC News reported.
Tuesday’s vote was widely viewed as a way to gauge voter sentiment in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which overturned the federal right to an abortion.
While Democrats are plagued politically by record inflation, the Dobbs decision was seen as a way to measure motivation among women, independents and the Democratic Party’s base to get out and vote.
As Katie Glueck of the New York Times framed it:
There may be no greater motivator in modern American politics than anger. And for months, Republican voters enraged by the Biden administration have been explosively energized about this year’s elections. Democrats, meanwhile, have confronted erosion with their base and significant challenges with independent voters.
