TOPEKA, Kan. – Abortion providers sued Kansas on Tuesday over a law enacted this year and existing restrictions, including a decades-old requirement that patients wait 24 hours after first seeing a provider to terminate their pregnancies.
Besides the waiting period, the lawsuit challenges a law set to take effect July 1 that will require providers to tell patients that a medication abortion can be stopped using a regimen that major medical groups have called unproven and potentially dangerous.
The lawsuit, filed in state district court in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, argues that Kansas has created a “Biased Counseling Scheme” designed to discourage patients from getting abortions and to stigmatize patients who terminate their pregnancies. The lawsuit contends that the requirements have become “increasingly absurd and invasive” over time and spread medical misinformation.