Abortion helped turn Kansas red. Now Sharice Davids is supporting an abortion rights bill.
Abortion has a long political history in Kansas, ranging from policies and protests to a shooting and an assassination. The result has often been legislative victories for the anti-abortion rights movement and a minefield for Democrats running in moderate or conservative districts.
But as anti-abortion activists appear within reach of achieving their ultimate goal — securing the ability of states to ban abortion — Democrats are pushing back. Their hope is the attention on restrictive abortion laws will resonate with the type of suburban voter who lives in U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids’ Third Congressional District..
As early as Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives is slated to vote on a bill that would make access to abortion a federal law and scale back some restrictions the anti-abortion rights movement have pushed through statehouses across the country.
Davids, who could face a tough reelection bid in 2022 after Republicans re-draw her district, is a co-sponsor.
“This bill would protect the right to access for the full range of reproductive care throughout the country, and I think that’s important,” Davids said in an interview with The Star.
For nearly 50 years — since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is a constitutional right to an abortion in the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision — abortion rights supporters have been able to rely on the courts.
That was before Republicans fundamentally reshaped the federal judiciary during former President Donald Trump’s administration, filling a record number of vacancies with conservative judges and cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Then, earlier this month, the court declined to block a Texas abortion law that allows people to sue anyone who provides an abortion or helps someone get an abortion after six weeks from conception.
“The Supreme Court was not there to step in in the last moment and now we’re seeing what that would look like if abortion becomes re-criminalized throughout the United States,” said Alesha Doan, an associate professor at the University of Kansas who studies abortion policy.
Now, Democrats want to step in, hoping to capitalize on renewed energy in what has long been a polarized political fight.
The politics of abortion
Abortion was always going to be an issue in Kansas in 2022.
Next August, voters will have to decide whether there should be a constitutional right to an abortion in Kansas, in a campaign that will galvanize both sides of the debate.
But the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Texas law to go into effect, and an upcoming challenge to Roe v. Wade it is scheduled to hear in December, has ignited the issue a little less than a year before Kansans will vote on the ballot measure.
Polling shows that the Texas law is unpopular, with 54 percent of people saying they oppose the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to let the law go into effect, according to a poll by Monmouth University.
When respondents heard the specifics of the bill their negative reaction grew. Eighty-one percent said they disapproved of a provision that would pay people $10,000 if they successfully sued someone who provided an abortion or helped someone get an abortion.
For decades, conservatives have used abortion as a wedge social issue to flip Democratic districts and drive statehouses farther to the political right. Democrats are hoping that opposition to the Texas law, and concerns that the courts will no longer protect abortion rights, will help motivate the suburban voters who helped elect President Joe Biden and enable the party to protect its slim majorities in Congress in 2022.
Davids’ district, which takes in Johnson and Wyandotte counties (along with a portion of Miami County) is full of the voters Democrats are courting. She was elected to Congress in 2018, during the so-called “year of the woman” which sent a record 103 to Congress, in part due to the backlash against the election of former President Donald Trump.
Because of the make-up of the district, abortion rights have never been much of a political issue. She was endorsed by Emily’s List, a political group that helps elect “pro-choice” Democratic women to Congress, and she has a 100 percent voting record on abortion rights issues according to NARAL, an abortion-rights group.
That was a safe political decision in her old district. Some Republicans in Topeka in charge of drawing new congressional lines have already made it clear that they are looking at ways to align the districts to the party’s advantage. Some Kansas Republicans have suggested maps where Wyandotte and Johnson, both of which voted for Biden in 2020, will not remain in the same Congressional District in 2022.
The possible result would be a more conservative Third, turning abortion into a re-election issue for Davids. And while Democrats hope the debate on abortion will galvanize their suburban support, abortion has traditionally been risky politically.
“When you have a Democratic politician in a competitive district or a more conservative district, it’s always a risk,” Doan said. “Abortion has never been a winning issue. It’s a difficult issue, it is highly polarizing, it’s extremely salient and in the past two decades and, in particular the past decade, it’s become even more polarizing.”
Already, anti-abortion rights groups are attempting to use Davids’ support for the abortion rights bill to attack the moderate credentials she’s tried to build over her four years in Washington.
“If Sharice Davids is the moderate that she claims to be, then she should easily oppose this radical legislation,” said Danielle Underwood, the director of communications for Kansans for Life, an anti-abortion rights group.
Amanda Adkins, who is running against Davids in 2022 after losing in 2020 by around 10 percentage points, did not respond to a request for an interview. Adkins refers to herself as a “pro-life advocate” on the issues page of her campaign website.
Where abortion has traditionally been an issue that has helped conservatives get elected, changing political dynamics have left some with the impression that the tide is turning.
As the conversation surrounding abortion has gotten more polarized, with some anti-abortion rights activists believing that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest or the a risk to the health of the mother, Democrats hope that abortion rights supporters will make it a higher priority issue when they vote.
“Most suburban Kansans, and most normal people, don’t want abortion to be outlawed,” said Kansas state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat. “They want people to have access to safe healthcare.”
Davids didn’t answer directly when she was asked whether she felt the tide had turned for Democrats on abortion rights. Instead, she talked about how co-sponsoring the bill fits in with her overall goal to expand access to healthcare.
“The right to make decisions about a person’s own body is at greater risk than ever,” Davids said. “That’s why this bill is important, legislative safeguards to protect access to care are important no matter what state you’re living in.”
What the bill does
Should it become law, the 27 page bill, called the “Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021,” would ensure that women would be able to have an abortion up until the point where the fetus is “viable,” meaning it can survive outside of the uterus without artificial support.
Along with ensuring the right to an abortion, the bill would strike down several state laws limiting abortion access, including Kansas’ 24-hour waiting period. It would also ban laws that require physicians to give patients information that may not be medically accurate and that require them to perform ultrasounds prior to the procedure.
“We know there are laws on the book in Kansas that mandate things like medically unnecessary restrictions or reduce access to healthcare services and also the people who are often most hurt by those types of restrictions are folks that are already facing barriers to accessing healthcare,” Davids said.
A bill codifying Roe v. Wade has never made it to the floor for a vote, despite attempts in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. But over the past decade more Democrats are identifying as pro-choice, according to polling by Gallup, which has led to a larger number of Democratic lawmakers who are willing to support legislation affirming abortion rights.
The bill was recently been backed by the Biden administration, when the Office of Management and Budget sent a letter saying “it has never been more important to codify this constitutional right and to strengthen health care access for all women.”
Still, the measure would face a fight in the Senate. While there are 48 cosponsors, Democrats do not have the votes to overcome the filibuster. Sen. Joe Manchin, the Democrat from the conservative state of West Virginia who voted with Republicans on bills to curb abortion access in both 2018 and 2019, has not signed onto the bill.
If it doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate, the House vote would be a largely symbolic attempt to galvanize the Democratic base in response to the Texas abortion law.
Davids, however, said she hopeful that bill will become law.
“What we’re seeing is increasing support to make sure that people again have that access to the full range of healthcare,” Davids said.
This story was originally published September 23, 2021 at 1:39 PM.