By Sarah Neely

Part Two: From Ballot Initiative to Abortion Haven

In this three-part series, Operation Rescue, based in Kansas for decades, draws from its keen knowledge of the state’s pro-life history to examine how the “Value Them Both” Kansas pro-life amendment failed in 2022, analyze how that failure has radically changed the abortion landscape in a conservative state, and discern what this grim future for the Sunflower State means for the pro-life movement right now. As more dangerous state ballot initiatives succeed, and even more see abortion through all nine months cemented into state constitutions, the stakes have never been higher!

Constructing a ‘No Holds Barred’ Haven

Since the overturn of Roe, the abortion rate in Kansas has sky-rocketed. In 2022, alone, Kansas saw a 57% increase in abortion. That staggering surge is almost entirely credited to women funneled from neighboring states. 

The number of abortion clinics has also nearly doubled.

In August 2022 – the same month that the pro-life amendment was defeated – Planned Parenthood opened the state’s fifth medical abortion clinic in Kansas City, Kansas. From this strategic location, Planned Parenthood can actively target preborn children across the nearby Missouri state line. 

Directly after the fall of Roe, Missouri was one of 15 states that instituted legal protections for preborn persons through all nine months of pregnancy. Of the remaining states bordering Kansas, Oklahoma also offers protection through all nine months. However, Nebraska allows killing of preborn persons up to 12 weeks, and Colorado has no gestational limits. 

The following year, another pill mill took root in Wichita: Aria Medical. Following Planned Parenthood’s lead to make Kansas the abortion hub for surrounding states, the Aria website boasts it will help women “traveling from any state” and lists partnering out-of-state abortion organizations like Arkansas Abortion Support Network and Missouri Abortion Fund. 

Aria brought the count to six. 

Now, Planned Parenthood is set to open the seventh abortion facility in Kansas, this time in the Southeast, where the abortion giant can target preborn children in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. This killing center will realize the full dream of the abortion lobby, offering chemical and surgical abortions. And, as Planned Parenthood’s other two surgical locations in the state already offer abortions into the second trimester, it’s very likely this location will as well. 

Currently, surgical abortions in Kansas are limited to 22 weeks – a gestational age at which many premature babies can now survive, due to advancing medical technologies. Again, if the abortion lobby wins its current court case and gains legal grounds for striking down current pro-life laws, there is nothing standing in the way of repealing the current limit and expanding gestational limits to all nine months of pregnancy. 

Kansas could become not only the abortion hub of the midwest, but a gruesome, late-term abortion haven. And, with so many new clinics, there is no doubt that abortion numbers for 2023, when finally released, will be astronomically higher than the 57 percent increase observed in 2022.

A higher abortion rate also comes with a higher number of abortion injuries. Despite the abortion lobby’s constant shouting that abortion is safe, dangerous complications like uncontrolled bleeding, perforated uteruses, and shock symptoms have been documented by Operation Rescue again and again, especially in high-volume clinics. Tragically, some women will even die from these botched abortions.

“As Kansas abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood work to funnel more women from other states,” Newman comments, “the devastation of abortion – both for the child and the mother – will only continue to create a deeper, uglier wound in our once beautiful state.”

Blood in the Water

Of course, Planned Parenthood is not the only abortion business striving to expand its clientele beyond Kansas.

Trust Women, another late-term abortion clinic in Wichita, recently forced huge shifts in leadership and policy that could indicate an attempt to become some kind of competitive “gold standard” for abortion. However, that attempt – if that was the clinic’s intention – has largely backfired.

In April, at least two board members were suddenly fired along with the facility’s medical director. That action brought on an unprecedented flurry of resignations from ten abortionists and other staff. As a result, Trust Women’s doors are currently closed and no abortions are being offered. However, the Board has adamantly stated this closure is only temporary while a new protocol is put in place – not because numerous staff members were just fired or quit. 

The new Board President has especially insisted to the media that nothing “nefarious” is going on, acting as if the sudden closure of the highest volume surgical abortion facility in the state is just ‘business as usual.’

Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Anne Reed states, “We find that particular spin unlikely. After decades of exposing the hidden transgressions happening behind dark doors of abortion facilities, especially in Kansas – our homebase – our investigative team knows that where there’s smoke, there’s almost always fire. Trust Women is undoubtedly hiding something.”

The new protocol mentioned can be found in a recent press release from the Board, stating that two physicians, including one medical director with abortion experience, must be present for every abortion. This was framed as a way of ensuring patient safety amid a much higher volume of abortion procedures. According to some sources, the clinic has been seeing between 650 to 750 patients a month.

Abortion clinics are not known for patient safety or accountability – especially Trust Women, where Operation Rescue has documented numerous abortion injuries over the years. And one would be hard pressed to find any pro-abortion organization willing to support any requirements for a higher standard of patient safety. To create such a strict protocol is essentially unheard of in the abortion industry, which the sudden resignation of 10 out of 16 abortionists might easily confirm.

More news broke this week that the interim Trust Women CEO installed after the recent shakeup has already resigned – after less than a month on the job. In addition, Trust Women has now hired Health Management Associates (HMA), an independent national research and consulting firm. 

Despite failing to resume abortions for weeks, which likely means a huge loss in profits, and continued in-fighting among staff, Trust Women still seems to hold some idea that it can reopen with new standards for care. 

“As Kansas becomes even more of an abortion haven, competition is rampant in a lucrative blood money industry,” Reed says. “With Planned Parenthood already owning half of the clinics in the state, independent clinics like Trust Women are likely looking for a way to get ahead.”

Troy Newman adds, “Of course, posturing as the clinic with the highest standard for patient safety is going to be a hard sell, if not completely laughable, for this dangerous late-term killing center. But I guess every bad business needs an even worse angle to work.”

Trust Women also owns a clinic in Oklahoma, which was forced to cease providing abortions almost immediately after the fall of Roe. It likely acts as a referral clinic to the Kansas location now, but all services stopped at this location, too, when the Kansas clinic closed its doors last month. Trust Women’s resulting sharp loss in revenue is likely at least one motivating factor in efforts to quickly regroup in Kansas – hoping fresh leadership and outside help might bring increased profits to an obviously troubled business. 

One thing is for sure: even troubled abortion businesses will have ample opportunity to turn a profit in a state where the constitution has been weaponized to strip preborn persons of any protection and endlessly expand the violence of abortion.

UP NEXT — Part Three: Exposing Their Extremism. As the pro-life movement continues to struggle against these pro-abortion amendments, Operation Rescue looks at what went wrong in Kansas, and what the movement must learn from these mistakes.

ICYMI, you can also read Part One here.