| We will start with the good news. I know many people are enjoying the long weekend! But I wanted to interrupt for just a moment. As we celebrate the nation the Lord has given us, there are a couple things that you should know about. The Good News First, an important ruling from a Kansas district court concerning Biden’s Title IX distortion of sex. On Wednesday, the Court enjoined the Biden Administration’s rule for Kansas kids! The Administration is trying to put gender identity on the same plane as sex. On April 19, 2024, the Biden Administration issued a 1600-page final rule on Title IX. This new rule inserts “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” into the class protected historically by the term “sex”. A few important take aways, the new regulations do not authorize schools to withhold information or hide gender transition from parents and do not require compelled speech. The rules, however, do consider repeated “misgendering” as harassment. The application of this section of the rules could become legally tricky. DOE’s explanations reinforce the right of parents to act on behalf of their minor children and reinforce that schools can still maintain sex-based athletics and sex-based living arrangements for the time being because Congress itself authorized it. These regulations do create some potential concerns for Kansas especially when it comes to pronouns, private facilities like locker rooms and bathrooms, and parental notification policies. The Kansas legislature has acted in many of these areas already to protect women’s and girls’ spaces and opportunities. The KASB is already trying to force some schools to adopt policies that fit Biden’s mandate. We were happy to help some school boards reject this rushed pressure campaign. The Kansas District Court has now enjoined this rule for Kansas, and three other states as well as for the schools were several different organizations have member families. This means Kansas schools do not need to comply with the Administration’s unconstitutional rules. This is the third court to enjoin the rules. School boards should be on notice that they are not to follow the Biden Administration’s directive. The Bad News In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court created an unlimited right to abortion in the Kansas Constitution using the section of our Constitution that protects our life and liberty. The case was about the 2015 live dismemberment abortion ban. The Court said that there was a right to abortion that is protected with the highest level of judicial review – meaning that all laws that infringe on this abortion right are presumed to be unconstitutional and have to meet an exacting standard in order to be upheld. The standard the Court used essentially meant that the people of Kansas through their elected representatives couldn’t pass any limitation on the abortion industry to protect women. People said we were just fear mongering when we said we would lose our more than 20 regulations on the abortion industry. They said we were making it up. But we’ve watched as one by one our laws that protect women and provide basic safety regulations on the abortion industry have been enjoined. And now struck down. Part of the confusion came because the Court didn’t apply their new framework (new right to abortion protected by strict scrutiny) to any particular law. They sent that back to the lower court to do. And today a year and half after the Court heard the arguments on the application of the 2019 ruling, the Court finally released the opinion we’ve known was coming since 2019. Today, the Court officially struck down the 2015 rule as violating this new right. It also permanently blocked our clinic licensing laws. We’re already seeing the damage that has been done. Our state is already a destination state for abortion. Many of our common sense laws are already unenforceable. And the abortion industry is already telling us they have performed around 20,000 abortions just last year. Before the 2019 ruling, there were around 6,000 abortions performed in Kansas. They are hiding. The Kelly Administration won’t release the KDHE abortion report and now the Court waits a year and a half on a holiday weekend to release this opinion? They don’t want you to know how abortions have skyrocketed because of their original Hodes decision. And they certainly don’t want you to know about this decision. Further as, Justice Stegall noted in beautifully succinct dissent – the Court refused to even fully recognize that the state had a compelling interest in protecting the dignity of the born and the unborn. And further, they barely used the word woman. In my search, the only time the majority used the word “woman” was in a quotation from another case or from a statute. Essentially this Court is attempting to write women out of the law. This is devastating news for people who care about moms and babies. But we won’t stop fighting for moms and their children. Kansas supreme court justices are picked by a committee made of up by a majority of lawyers. We need to reform this selection process so we can bring more accountability to the Court. But more than ever, the church needs to step up and be the church. We need to meet these moms where they are and walk with them through whatever they are walking through. We need to support pregnancy resource centers by volunteering, providing financial support, and pass laws that empower them to do what they do best. Most of all we need to pray. We need to pray for revival. We need to pray that the church will wake up & boldly share the Gospel which is the hope of the world. We need to pray for the courage to live out Scripture’s call to seek the welfare of our citie s and not shrink back from doing the hard work of loving men and women who need hope beyond abortion. As Christians this is what we’re called to do. While we celebrate the win against the Biden Administration in the Title IX case, we continue to rededicate ourselves to the hard, holy work of standing in the gap for women and their babies in our community! For Kansas, |
