A judge in Kansas blocked a state law requiring healthcare providers to inform patients that medication abortion can be reversed and that abortion is linked to breast cancer on Monday, pending his review of a legal challenge to the law by abortion providers and Planned Parenthood.
Judge K. Christopher Jayaram of the District Court of Johnson County stated that the April law violated the free speech and abortion rights of physicians and patients, which the state's highest court recognized in 2019.
The judge wrote that the Kansas Constitution and Bill of Rights necessarily restrict the state's ability to legislate based on its own moral convictions. It "may choose a side and a position, but it may not violate the inalienable natural rights of the people"
This is a preliminary injunction, not a final order, and it will remain in effect while Jayaram considers the lawsuit.
Alice Wang, who is the spokesperson for the Center for Reproductive Rights, issued a statement in which she said that the ruling removed paternalistic roadblocks that have for far too long restricted access to abortion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is the organization that is defending the plaintiffs in this case.
According to Caleb Dalton, who is working for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the state of Kansas in this case, the people of Kansas have the right idea in wanting to protect the health and safety of pregnant women as well as the lives of unborn children, and they will continue to defend their interests. "We will proceed to defend their interests in the future."
ADF is a conservative legal organization that has led other anti-abortion lawsuits, including one in which it obtained an order from a Texas judge prohibiting the abortion drug mifepristone last year.
This order is on hold while the Biden administration appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In June, a regional affiliate of Planned Parenthood and several individual providers filed a lawsuit against the state of Kansas, alleging that the state's statute compels physicians to promote experimental and potentially harmful treatments and to disseminate false information.
Mifepristone and misoprostol are two pills that, when used together, can induce a medical abortion.
Mifepristone's effects can be undone by taking a large quantity of the hormone progesterone, as stated in the law of the state of Kansas, which mandates that medical professionals advise their patients of this fact.
On its website, the American Cancer Society states that while the topic is difficult to research, scientific evidence "does not support the notion that any type of abortion increases the risk of breast cancer."
In the one and only randomized controlled trial of the so-called reversal, three out of twelve patients developed serious hemorrhaging, resulting in their need to be hospitalized.
Up to 22 weeks during a pregnancy, abortions are legal in Kansas. Voters in Kansas turned down a ballot initiative in August 2022 that would have removed abortion rights from the state constitution.
Following the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent by the United States Supreme Court, which had established a right to abortion across the country and made it possible for several states run by Republicans to ban or restrict abortion, the vote took place.
