One advantage to having lost this vote is that if a law like that is passed then resulting argument before the Kansas Supreme Court will amount to “You said we can’t to this, the voting public said we can’t do this, but could you please let is ignore all that?”
1 Like
And it seems to be true for many of their traditional “key” issues - guns, abortion, gay rights…
2 Likes
Yeah, I’m very curious to see what the percentage of vote-splitting was.
Which is exactly the fig leaf SCOTUS used coupled with the interpretation that a woman’s right to medical privacy is not a component of the guarantee of “freedom” enumerated in the Constitution as the Jackson lawyers argued.
4 Likes
I don’t know much about Kassebaum, but Bob Dole was part of the GOP, which now more than ever means the grand OLD party. The new repubs really need to be branded the GQP. Like someone else said here, the new repubs are far to the right of the GOP. Or as I saw in a different post’s comments, the national christians, or NAT-Cs.
3 Likes
I’m sure no one will be shocked to learn that the groups behind this “amendment” (pathetic as it was) have already stated this is only a “temporary roadblock”.
So, in summary: Kansas forced birthers not only say “fuck women!” but also say “fuck the citizenry of this state!”
3 Likes
it is different than the us constitution because the list of rights that kansas enumerates are explicitly open ended and include all natural human rights. that isn’t an interpretation, that was a deliberate choice they made when authoring their constitution.
could they add language to their constitution saying abortion is explicitly protected? of course they could.
should they? normally i would say no – because what about all the other natural rights that aren’t listed? those immediately become “lesser” rights. ( see the us constituion and the way abortion was interpreted by this us supreme court as lesser, and not real because some rights are and some rights aren’t listed. )
however, in the current context? yes, it would probably be a good idea.
Because nothing currently prevents that court from reversing themselves in a future case.
nothing ever prevents a government from enacting wrong and dangerous laws. we are always at the mercy of the legislature, the courts, the cops, and the military. or even our neighbors. that’s just the way the world works. every word put down is an attempted bulwark against bad outcomes. but it’s always just still words. nothing is ever permanent.
2 Likes
The Kansas Constitution does not explicitly list abortion or body autonomy as rights. The Kansas Supreme Court interpreted the enumerated right to implicitly include body autonomy. Again, I agree with this interpretation, but it is an interpretation.
1 Like
the constitution listed no rights except those they said were examples. those are the words they used. i don’t know what else to say.
perhaps you mean that is an interpretation or someone’s opinion that bodily autonomy is a human right? even the us supreme court didn’t go that far. they just said the constitution doesn’t protect it.
1 Like
It is absolutely an interpretation by the Kansas Supreme Court that bodily autonomy is a “natural right.” That’s literally what their holding was in that case. When we talk about explicit versus implicit in the legal sense, explicit means that something says that in those exact words. Implicit means it doesn’t, but we can infer the meaning from what it does say. The latter requires an interpretation. For example, in the US Constitution, the right to bear arms is explicit. It’s right there (unfortunately) in those exact words in the 2nd Amendment. The right to privacy, on the other hand, is not explicit in the US Constitution. In the past, SCOTUS has interpreted this rights as existing in the Constitution implicitly. The current Court seems to disagree, and this illustrates why this is important with abortion rights and the Kansas state constitution. That right exists, legally, by implication, as the Court interpreted the constitution in that case. A new court could interpret it differently, and Kansas Supreme Court justices are not appointed for life. They serve 6 year terms. The next time there’s a Republican governor, this interpretation could easily change.
1 Like
we’re obviously talking past each other at this point. i think i’ve said my piece, and you’ve said yours. i’m fine with letting that be that.
I just don’t want people to think this is over, even in Kansas. All it takes is for Kansas to elect a Republican governor, and then re-elect that governor to a second term, and that Court will be full of “conservative, originalist” justices a la Clarence Thomas, and they will reverse that ruling as soon as the legislature can get a case in front of them. They won’t respect precedent any more than the conservatives on SCOTUS did in Dobbs.
5 Likes
Hurray. I’m helping!
The question on the ballot was horribly written, and the ads were dishonest and deceptive in support of “Yes” (which would have allowed abortion to be banned.) There was a concerted effort to get the vote out and educate people to vote “No” for pro-choice.
This was a ridiculous and cynical bit of reporting because Kansas is not a bellwether for anything: it’s a deep-red state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate1 since the 1930s.
Ehhh - it really isn’t as “deep red” as one would think. It is largely rural that does swing Republican, but the cities, especially Johnson Co, swing Democrat. I believe you’re right about the Senate due to how things are split up, but they do have several Democrat members of the House of Represenatives, including currently Sharice Davids. Also the Governor is currently a Democrat. It is more purple than many of its neighbors.
2 Likes
2 Likes
I live in Sedgwick County in Kansas and this vote was huge here. Normally you see all the conservative stuff around, because most of the time if you let it be known you’re not conservative, you get targeted. But this was a whole different feel. So many signs up around to vote no. Billboards, yards, cars, social media from people here in Kansas. Even some churches sported vote no signs. This was a turn in the right direction for my state. I’m proud to be a Kansan right now.
8 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
