The Vote In Kansas Is Just The Beginning
What We Must Do To Protect Abortion Rights In The States—NOW
Kansas voters have defeated a ballot measure that overturns the state’s constitutional protection for abortion and allows state legislators to pass more laws banning abortion. This was a tremendous victory for reproductive rights, and a model for what must come next.
The decision in the Dobbs case opened the floodgates for states to go as far as they can imagine to shred women’s constitutional rights and control their bodily autonomy. We can’t let them succeed.
If the ballot initiative had passed in Kansas, it would have become nearly impossible to obtain an abortion in the region. Most of the states bordering Kansas have moved to ban abortion since Dobbs, and out-of-state patients have been coming to Kansas from as far away as Texas, since that state’s six-week ban became law.
More ballot initiatives are on the way to protect abortion rights in states like Vermont and California, or end them in Kentucky, Michigan and Montana. New battleground states are emerging from week to week.
NOW members will be active everywhere our rights are under threat. We will march, organize and vote for women’s lives. We will support candidates who will defend our rights to control our own bodies and push for legislation to codify abortion rights state by state.
Kansas voters prevailed against the odds, the big spending and the extremist agenda that was endorsed by the Supreme Court, but this fight is far from over. NOW’s grassroots energy and strategic advocacy is needed more than ever.
What happened in Kansas won’t stay in Kansas–but NOW is ready.
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The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the nation’s leading membership-based advocacy group dedicated to defending women’s rights, advancing equality and combating injustice in all aspects of social, political and economic life. Through educating, mobilizing, and convening a vast network of grassroots activists across the country, NOW advocates for national, state and local policies that promote an anti-racist and intersectional feminist agenda. Since its founding in 1966, NOW has been on the frontlines of nearly every major advancement for women’s rights and continues to champion progressive values today. More about NOW’s efforts and resources is available at NOW.org.