By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector
OLATHE — Two women said they regretted their abortion procedures as they testified Wednesday during the second leg of a trial challenging state laws that impose requirements on abortion providers and patients.
However, the women’s abortions took place before the restrictions at the center of the case were in effect. And one woman did not receive any abortions in the state of Kansas.
The case in Johnson County District Court has been decades in the making, beginning in 1997 when Kansas lawmakers initially passed the Woman’s Right to Know Act. It contained a series of requirements relating to informed consent and steps abortion providers must take before performing an abortion. Republican legislators have built upon the act in the years since.
Melissa Cole, a retiree who lives in Tulsa but grew up in Overland Park, spoke about her three abortions. She obtained the first at 15 years old in 1974 in Missouri. The others took place in Arkansas and Texas. Donna Pond, a retired bookkeeper originally from Winfield, detailed her abortion, which took place in 1986 in Wichita when she was 16 years old.
“You can’t go back once you’ve made that decision,” Cole said. “You can’t go back.”
The trial resumed Tuesday after a multi-week break. The first part, in late September, began with two OB-GYNs whose businesses brought the suit against Kansas officials. The Center for Reproductive Rights, an international legal advocacy organization, is representing Traci Lynn Nauser, an Overland Park OB-GYN, and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. They sued Kansas officials in 2023 over the Woman’s Right to Know Act and tacked onto the lawsuit the following year a newer law that was passed as House Bill 2749.
The plaintiffs concluded witness testimony Tuesday with an ethicist and a historian on the stand. Wednesday was the state’s first opportunity to present witnesses.
The state is represented by attorneys from the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, along with former Kansas appeals judge and current solicitor general Anthony Powell.
In the decades since Cole underwent her procedures, she said, she has changed her mind about abortion. It was a change fueled by her Christian faith. She said she believes abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, including in cases of rape and incest, and she likened abortion to murder throughout her testimony.
The 66-year-old said she never discussed her abortions before the trial, save for a faith-based abortion recovery group.
“You never forget,” she said.
Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst is an OB-GYN with decades of experience as an academic and doctor, domestically and internationally. She also frequently testifies in abortion-related cases. She said her going rate is $800 an hour, and she has contributed to abortion-related cases in at least eight other states — most recently a deposition in Missouri earlier this month.
Wubbenhorst said she believes the Woman’s Right to Know Act “serves to protect the health of women and children.” Collecting data on a patient’s reasons for abortion, which is a provision of the 2024 legislation, “has public health significance and is helpful in public health activities,” she said.
As she unpacked a litany of studies and research related to abortions, Wubbenhorst and attorneys on both sides drilled into granular issues, including whether a fetus is a human or a collection of cells. Wubbenhorst was specific about her terminology. To her, she said it was important to distinguish between “intentional feticide,” referring to elective abortions, and “termination of pregnancy,” an abortion performed to save the life of a mother.
The 2024 law, which a court blocked before it could take effect, required providers to tell patients that abortions can be reversed, which is not widely accepted as safe, and to ask patients why they sought an abortion, offering a list of around a dozen reasons. The original right to know law mandates abortion providers use state-sanctioned abortion language, implement 30-minute wait periods before receiving an abortion, and print materials in a specific typeface on a particular color of paper.
While the plaintiffs have argued that Kansas’ restrictions threaten patient health and safety, the state’s attorneys attempted to show that the state laws do not cause harm to patients.
The case is scheduled to continue through Friday.
