NYT: There's No Place Like Kansas

Yet for all the fresh energy and attention being directed toward saving abortion in Kansas, it is hard not to feel that the reproductive-rights side is a little overwhelmed. Its most prominent player, Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, has a modest-size staff that seems to be constantly dashing around the state to this or that meeting or event. And while the group says it has plenty of volunteers, it’s not as though folks are consistently showing up in droves for canvassing events. After the door-knocking in Wyandotte County, I showed up for the launch of an afternoon event in nearby Johnson County, a politically moderate, affluent suburban enclave thought to be prime territory for the anti-amendment side. There were just a handful of people milling around. (I was assured that an earlier event had been better attended.)

his is not to disparage the yeoman’s work being done by the pro-choice forces here. But some of the challenges that Democrats and abortion rights supporters are dealing with are likely to pop up other places too, as the crucial battles on abortion shift to the state level. Lawmakers elsewhere are moving fast on the issue, including in multiple states where legislators are pushing to amend their constitutions. Just this month, the Republican-controlled legislature in Pennsylvania took the first of two votes needed to advance an amendment excluding abortion rights from its Constitution. Kansas is only the beginning.