Last Wednesday, a district court judge in Kansas temporarily blocked a law that banned doctors in the state from prescribing abortion pills to patients using telemedicine. While the ruling is likely to be appealed, pro-choice advocates see the decision as a step forward in increasing access to abortion in a state where many women may live hours from the nearest clinic and where many abortion providers are inundated with out-of-state patients.
In 2019, Trust Women, a chain of abortion clinics that has a location in Wichita, filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against two Kansas laws that banned doctors in the state from prescribing abortion pills to be taken at home and requiring that patients take the drugs at a treatment location with the prescribing physician present. In its lawsuit, the clinic argued that the state laws—the one mentioned above and another that removed protections for telemedicine abortions from an existing telemedicine law—violated women's right to obtain an abortion guaranteed by the state constitution. (A ballot measure intended to remove that protection from the constitution was rejected by voters in August.)
