Pro-abortion activists are thrilled a pro-life ballot measure failed this week in Kansas.
They’re thrilled it failed, and they’re thrilled a surprisingly large number of Kansans voted to reject a proposal to remove protections for abortion from the state’s constitution. Confusingly, though, many of these activists see the measure’s defeat as a supposed blow to the Supreme Court. It’s confusing because the court argued specifically in its decision overturning Roe v. Wade that what happened in Kansas is exactly as it should be.
It’s as if to say: Kansans decided for themselves abortion policy, just as the court said they should. Take that, Supreme Court!
“The Supreme Court has lately looked like the most powerful part of the federal government, with the final word on abortion, gun laws, climate policy, voting rights and more,” the New York Times’s David Leonhardt argued in an article titled, “Defying the Supreme Court.”
No. In the case of abortion, the Supreme Court argued specifically it does not have the final word but that state legislatures do.
“These developments offer a reminder about the limits of the Supreme Court’s power,” Leonhardt added. “The founders did not design the court to be the final arbiter of American politics, anyway.”
The Supreme Court agrees! This was the entire point of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Elsewhere, at the Spanish-language network Univision, host Carolina Sarassa alleged the ballot measure’s failure is “the first setback for the Supreme Court, which happens a month after the court eliminated the right to an abortion throughout the country.”
“Setback” how? The Supreme Court argued exactly for this type of self-governance. The matter was put to Kansans and their legislators to decide, not a federal body of unelected jurists with lifetime appointments. What happened in the Sunflower State is what the Supreme Court wants: for voters and their elected representatives to settle it for themselves. Also, the Dobbs decision did not eliminate the “right to an abortion throughout the country.” It tossed the matter back to the states, arguing abortion is not a constitutional matter, given the “right” to abortion exists nowhere in the Constitution.
In the pages of the Washington Post, it is more of the same.
“The new majority of radical Republican Supreme Court justices changed everything in June by reversing a half century of precedent and ending federally protected abortion rights,” columnist David Von Drehle wrote in an article titled, “The Kansas abortion vote sends a powerful message to the Supreme Court.”
“More than a message to the Republican Party,” the article continued, “the Kansas vote was a powerful reply to the Supreme Court. Central to the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., was a theory that courts have no proper role in the abortion debate and that ‘the authority to regulate abortion’ should be ‘returned to the people and their elected representatives.’”
What message did voters send to the Supreme Court? That they will choose for themselves, as the Supreme Court argues they should? How is it a “powerful” rejoinder to engage in civic duties as envisioned by the Supreme Court?
The column added, “Kansans roundly rejected the idea that individual rights should come and go depending on who most effectively lobbies the state legislature, and assured that the Kansas Supreme Court — which in 2019 enshrined abortion protections in state law — will continue to play a deciding role.”
The aforementioned paragraphs concede what happened in Kansas is precisely in line with the court’s vision of constitutional order. What was the “message,” then? That Kansans embraced a system of self-governance the Supreme Court honored and bolstered with its Dobbs decision? A powerful “message” indeed.
Drehle continued: “On certain matters, Americans want the government to butt out and expect the courts to protect their right to be left alone.”
Again, this is exactly what the Supreme Court argued in Dobbs! Did we read the same opinion?
You get the picture. The response from certain corners of the pro-abortion rights movement has been a confusing one, claiming the vote in Kansas is somehow an act of defiance against the Supreme Court. But, as has been mentioned several times, what happened in Kansas is exactly in line with the court’s reasoning for overturning Roe. The people had their say, and they got to choose their own path, electing to keep protections for abortion in the state’s constitution.
As always, though, it’s apparently not enough for pro-abortion rights activists to take the win. They also must find some political “gotcha” to play against a political body they detest with a passion. Maybe once, just for fun, pro-abortion rights activists should try winning with grace.
And as for the defeated, the pro-lifers, they shouldn’t be too troubled by what happened in Kansas. The loss is surely painful, but a loss at the voting booth is preferable to being shut out of the process altogether by a poorly decided and fiercely protected Supreme Court ruling.
Buck up, pro-lifers. Dust yourselves off, and prepare to fight again. After all, if there’s one thing you should be good at by now, it’s being patient.
Becket Adams is the program director of the National Journalism Center.
