Jessica Porter, communications chair for the Shawnee County, Kansas, Democratic Party, discusses a sign in Spanish urging voters to oppose a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution to allow legislators to further restrict or ban abortion, Friday, July 15, 2022, in Topeka, Kansas.
John Hanna/AP
Kansas is voting on an amendment that would weaken the right to abortion in the state. Polls close at 7 p.m. local time. Follow along for live results.
See results for Kansas congressional and state primaries here.
The amendment and the stakes:
Kansas voters are the first in the country to directly weigh on abortion rights since the Supreme Court in late June overturned the abortion protections in Roe v. Wade.
On Tuesday’s primary ballot, voters are faced with a measure, Amendment 2, which, if passed, would establish no right to abortion and no right to public funding for abortion under the state constitution. It would reverse a 2019 decision by the state Supreme Court establishing a right to abortion in the Kansas Bill of Rights, representing yet another battle between conservative interests and the state supreme court.
The specific language of the amendment states: “Because Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”
The amendment is on the ballot as a yes-no question, and requires a simple majority of the vote to pass.
Four other states — Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia — have also passed constitutional amendments establishing no right to abortion under their constitutions over the past decade. Those amendments have proven key to curtailing abortion access and allowing bans to go into effect in the post-Roe era.
Kansas is one of five US states where voters will directly decide the state of abortion access via ballot measures in 2022. In November, Kentucky will vote on a similar measure establishing no right to abortion, Montana will vote on a measure guaranteeing medical care to infants “born alive,” and two blue states, California and Vermont, will vote on amendments to enshrine the right to abortion in their state constitutions.