New legislation concerning fetal tax exemptions and fetal development education are coming to Kansas this summer, garnering praise from anti-abortion advocates and criticism from abortion rights supporters.
In the final days of the Kansas legislative session, Republican lawmakers succeeded in pushing through several legislative priorities of anti-abortion advocates. That includes two new laws that create tax exemptions for fetuses and mandate fetal development education in some public school classes, as well as $3 million in funding for anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers.
The bills passed when Republicans in the state House and Senate voted to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. She described the bills as efforts to subvert the will of Kansas voters, who in 2022 overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that could have led to a statewide abortion ban.
Jeanne Gawdun, a lobbyist with the advocacy group Kansans for Life, celebrated the new laws in a statement.
“These wins will make a real difference in the lives of Kansas families,” Gawdun said. “While Governor Kelly rejected compassionate policies that support women, families and commonsense student education about human development before birth, the legislature chose to meet women in their time of need and stand for truth.”
Fetal tax exemptions and child support
House Bill 2062 formally allows judges to require fathers to pay for pregnancy-related expenses starting from the date of conception as part of child support orders — something already allowed by law. It also enables parents to claim a personal income tax exemption of $2,320 for unborn and stillborn children.
The abortion opponents who advocated for the law say it will ensure women have adequate financial support during pregnancy. They say it could also make some Kansans decide against having an abortion because of financial pressure.
But opponents have described it as a backdoor attempt to attack the right to abortion in Kansas by codifying “fetal personhood” — a legal concept that fetuses have the same legal rights as women.
A coalition of six advocacy groups, including the ACLU of Kansas, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes and Loud Light Civic Action, issued a joint statement last month warning that the law threatens Kansans’ constitutional rights.
“HB 2062 … is part of a growing trend of state legislation using child support and tax laws to further an anti-abortion agenda,” they said.
More than two dozen private citizens submitted written testimony opposing the law.
Ahead of a vote on the House floor, Democratic Rep. Nikki McDonald of Olathe criticized the bill for nearly half an hour and questioned the motives of its supporters.
“If we were serious about ensuring the wellbeing of a pregnant person, we would be passing bills that expand health care access,” she said. “We would make health care affordable. We would broaden our sex education programs.”
She and other Democrats also raised questions about problems that could arise around interstate enforcement, IVF, the establishment of paternity, calculation of pregnancy-related expenses and domestic violence scenarios.
“I would argue that this bill provides a financial incentive for abusive men to impregnate women, even multiple women, and then cause the death of the fetus to avoid its birth,” McDonald said.
Speaking in support of the bill, Wichita Republican Rep. Susan Humphries said courts are already equipped to answer many of the questions raised by Democrats.
“(The questions) are not necessarily needed to be answered in this bill,” she said, “but they are answered by what the court does when they’re deciding child support already.”
Humphries also referenced lawmakers’ decision in 2022 to extend Medicaid coverage to women up to 12 months postpartum, pushing back on McDonald’s claims about health care access.
“This bill is about being compassionate to pregnant women,” she said.
Legal experts say the bill will not immediately impact abortion access in Kansas, but could result in reduced access down the line, depending on how it is interpreted by courts.
Lawmakers did not override Kelly’s veto of a similar bill last year. After the fall elections, conservative Republicans now have stronger majorities.
Fetal development education
Under another piece of legislation, some public school students in Kansas could soon be required to receive education in fetal development.
Republicans amended House Bill 2382, which initially concerned state school board compensation, to include a mandate covering any public school class that includes biology or sexual education topics.
Those classes must now include a “presentation of a high-quality, computer-generated animation or high-definition ultrasound of at least three minutes in duration that shows the development of the brain, heart and other vital organs in early human fetal development.”
The new rule takes effect in July, and would impact all grade levels.
Democrats denounced the potential that children as young as kindergarteners could be shown material that is not age-appropriate.
“It might be okay, in your family, for your kindergarten or your five-year-old, your six-year-old to talk about sex and how babies are made and how all this happens. But it's not okay in a lot of other families,” Rep. Linda Featherston, an Overland Park Democrat, said on the House floor last week.
Kelly called the bill “convoluted, manipulative, and wrong” in a statement about her decision to veto it, and said it undermined the authority of state and local education officials.
“This bill fails to establish standards to ensure the information included in the program is evidence-based,” she said. “But it is not surprising, as the goal of this bill is not to educate developing and impressionable young minds – it is to push a specific agenda without proper research to back it up.”
Jason Goetz, a Dodge City Republican, pushed back on those concerns.
“This legislation still allows the state school board to put in standards (around) how they want this implemented. They can still give some guidance,” he said.
Kimya Forouzan, a state policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, said in an interview that the legislation reflects a broader trend in Republican-controlled states.
“For the last two years, we have really seen this focus on fetal development and sex ed in schools,” she said.
She said many states’ laws include a requirement that students view “Baby Olivia,” a video on fetal organ development produced by the national anti-abortion group Live Action. The Kansas law does not reference any specific video, but the Live Action video does meet the law’s three-minute minimum length requirement.
More money for pregnancy centers
Lawmakers also added $3 million in funding back into the budget for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers after Kelly rejected the item in a line-item veto — a $1 million increase from current funding.
Dozens of the centers exist across Kansas. The typically faith-affiliated, nonprofit organizations offer support for pregnant Kansans including free parenting education, baby clothes and diapers. Proponents say they’re a compassionate resource for people with unintended pregnancies.
In a statement last week, Kansans for Life said the centers “(provide) practical help and emotional support to women facing unplanned or difficult pregnancies.”
But they also have an anti-abortion mission, and critics say they often mislead the vulnerable clients who visit them.
In her veto note, Kelly called state funding for the centers “inappropriate and simply politically minded.”
“Kansas women facing unplanned pregnancies deserve meaningful support from medical professionals who can provide evidence-based guidance, not from largely unregulated pregnancy resource centers,” she said.
Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said patients seeking abortions regularly arrive at the organization’s Kansas clinics after mistakenly going to the anti-abortion centers or receiving misinformation from center operators.
“We've had patients who come in in tears, who are hours late to their appointments because they felt like they couldn't leave (a pregnancy resource center),” she said.
Aging and disability laws
Kansans for Life also praised the passage of two laws concerning aging and disabilities that received bipartisan support. One strengthens the decision-making power of those under court-ordered guardianships and conservatorships. The second transfers a program that provides information to families who receive a prenatal or postnatal diagnosis of Down syndrome and other conditions from the state health department to the Kansas Council on Developmental Disabilities.
