By Anna Kaminski
TOPEKA — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed a partisan, anti-abortion bill that offered protections to crisis pregnancy centers, which can function as alternatives to health clinics with abortion services.
Within hours, the House and Senate voted to overturn her decision.
Kelly said Kansans have been clear. They don’t want the government involved in private medical decisions, she said in a Friday announcement.
“That means we shouldn’t be spending tax dollars trying to interfere with that very personal, very private, medical decision,” she said. “That’s why I’m vetoing this bill.”
The House voted 87-35 and the Senate voted 30-9 to override the veto.
House Bill 2635 exempted centers from regulations that dictate what information, services and resources centers can provide on pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. Centers, sometimes called pregnancy resource centers, typically don’t provide abortions and, instead, dispense inaccurate information about abortion pill reversal treatment, undercut regulatory oversight and target low-income populations, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Kansans for Life, the organization that proposed the bill, said in a statement posted on X that Kelly’s veto was “sad, but not surprising.”
Rep. Tom Kessler, R-Wichita, criticized Kelly’s justification for the veto that the bill was a waste of taxpayer dollars. The bill didn’t include a direct fiscal impact estimate, he said.
Rep. Heather Meyer, D-Overland Park, said that taxpayer dollars are involved because legislators stood on the House floor Friday evening discussing pregnancy resource centers “when the majority of Kansans already stated that they support a person’s right to choose their own reproductive decisions.”
Through separate legislation and budget provisions, the Legislature has given $7 million to crisis pregnancy centers since 2022 through a state program.
The pregnancy center autonomy and rights of expression act, or CARE Act, also makes it easier for centers to file lawsuits against any individual or governing entity that violates the CARE Act, if it were to become law. The bill allows state legislators to intervene in any CARE Act lawsuit. The Office of Judicial Administration said the bill could increase caseloads in district courts because it creates a new private cause of action, potentially affecting judicial budgets.
Other Democrats, including Wichita Rep. Ford Carr and Lawrence Rep. Brooklynne Mosley, questioned the true motives behind legislators’ pro-life ideology, arguing they fail to support children after birth.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, condemned Kelly’s veto ahead of the override vote.
“This governor is quick to talk about supporting choice, but that support disappears the moment a mother chooses life,” he said in a statement.
He said politicians and bureaucrats shouldn’t interfere with organizations that run pregnancy resource centers, and to target those groups “is just plain wrong.”
Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said Kelly vetoed “good legislation that saves lives.”
“This bill simply protects pregnancy resource centers’ ability to educate mothers and provide life-affirming care,” he said in a statement.
Earlier that day, Masterson celebrated the House vote that overrode Kelly’s veto of tax breaks for nontraditional health plan users by ringing a bell outside the House chamber.
“I look forward to ringing-in another override soon,” he said before the second override vote.
This story has been updated to reflect the Legislature’s veto override votes.
