abortion

Coleman introduced a bill last year, modeled on the wildly controversial Texas law, allowing citizens to sue anyone who seeks out, provides, or helps someone get an abortion. The bill essential bans abortion as soon as cardiac activity is detected, as early as six weeks.

Abortion, vaccine mandates, and redistricting among the issues being addressed in Jefferson City

More than half a dozen bills have been filed so far that aim to strip abortion providers or their affiliates of participation in the state’s Medicaid program or from receiving public benefits more broadly.

Known as SB8, the highly restrictive law has spawned a copycat bill for consideration in Missouri.

Kansas, a red state with its own litany of abortion regulations, has become an unlikelysanctuary for people across the Midwest and the South with even less access to abortion. Plus, Kansas City Today is talking to people across the city about what they've learned in year two of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past two years, Kansas has become an unlikely sanctuary for people across the Midwest and South who need abortions. But whether it remains a refuge will largely depend on decisions the U.S. Supreme Court and Kansas voters make next summer.

The bill from state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, would ban abortions as early as six weeks. Modeled on a Texas law, it also would allow private citizens to sue doctors or others who aid abortion seekers if they disobey the law.

The 2011 law was blocked because a judge said it could have made it harder to get an abortion in Kansas.

The fate of abortion in the U.S. appears to be on shaky ground as a divided Supreme Court weighs a Mississippi law. A decision in the case is expected by summer.

At issue is whether to reverse the court's nearly half-century-old decision, Roe v. Wade, and subsequent decisions declaring that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.

After abortion restrictions left Missouri with just one clinic in St. Louis, residents have turned to neighboring states for those services. But a ballot measure in August 2022 will let Kansas voters decide whether abortion is not a constitutional right in the state.

New rules require state inspectors to report violations directly to Medicaid auditors, which could jeopardize funding.