Blueprinting the Kansas Abortion-Rights Victory

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

50% : In another, a retired Protestant minister says it "replaces religious freedom with government control."
50% : They simply wanted to guarantee access to abortion -- for themselves, their relatives, their friends, or persons unknown.
49% : In fact, voting yes would remove the right to abortion from the state constitution, granting significant power to anti-abortion Republicans in the legislature.
49% : What started small, with a core group of well-known advocates, including Planned Parenthood, the A.C.L.U., and a Wichita abortion clinic called Trust Women, grew to a coalition of roughly forty organizations that spent more than six million dollars and knocked on tens of thousands of doors.
49% : Both, the coalition of abortion foes that included leaders of the local Catholic Church, notably Kansas City Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, the former chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
47% : In three decades since abortion opponents staged the Summer of Mercy in Wichita, lying down in front of cars to prevent women from reaching clinics, limits on abortion have multiplied, and Republicans now hold super-majorities in the state legislature, making it easier to overcome vetoes by the Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, who is seeking reëlection this year.
45% : The way you talk about abortion in a place like Kansas is going to be a little different than the way you talk about it in a place like New York or California, but it's really important to talk about it, especially now."
45% : A few days earlier, Humphries, a state representative who opposes abortion, had texted me after a canvassing session: "We are feeling optimistic.
43% : "We actually did talk about abortion a lot, but we talked about it in a different way," All told me.
43% : "If we want to build back access to abortion in places like the Midwest and the South, then we have to do it differently," All told me.
39% : She said that some fierce opponents of abortion voted against the amendment because they didn't think it went far enough, a situation she found "really hard to swallow."

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