Trust Women Foundation Inc. v. Bennett
(REVISED 1.19.2022) The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit challenging section 6 of the Kansas Telemedicine Act (House Bill 2028), which seeks to ban abortions administered through telemedicine, and a provision of a Kasnas regulatory scheme that prohibits the provision of any medication used to induce an abortion unless the prescribing physician is in the same room and in the presence of the patient when the medication is administered.
The challenge was brought on behalf of Trust Women Wichita, a licensed ambulatory surgical center that has been providing safe, high-quality reproductive health care in Kansas since 2013. Telemedicine has allowed facilities like Trust Women to expand access to services. Before introducing telemedicine at their Wichita clinic, Trust Women was only able to provide abortion care two days a week: they are now able to offer medication abortion services on additional weekdays and on Saturdays.
If the challenged laws go into effect, doctors would be required to be physically present when a woman takes medication to end her pregnancy, forcing many women to travel long distances for a simple medication abortion. Most women in Kansas don’t live in a county with an abortion clinic—in 2014, 97% of Kansas counties were without a single clinic that provided abortions. Medication abortion has been available in the U.S. since 2000 and is extremely safe—the serious complication rate is less than one-half of one percent, whether provided in-person or by telemedicine.
Kansas women already face a number of abortion restrictions—they are required to receive state-mandated information and then wait at least 24-hours before obtaining an abortion. Women on Medicaid and state employees cannot use their health care coverage to obtain an abortion unless the pregnancy is life-threatening, and state agencies and employees are prohibited from providing abortion services. Private insurance is also banned from covering abortion in Kansas.
Plaintiff(s): Trust Women Foundation Inc. d/b/a South Wind Women’s Center d/b/a Trust Women Wichita
Center Attorney(s): Marc Hearron, Jessica Sklarsky
Co-Counsel/Cooperating Attorneys: Robert Eye in Lawrence, Kansas
Summary:
The Center filed a challenge in state court on November 8, 2018, challenging a law that would ban the provision of abortion care via telemedicine. After a hearing on our request for a temporary injunction, the district court issued an order on December 31 concluding that the State may not enforce a ban on telemedicine abortion due to an existing injunction in our ongoing litigation challenging a Kansas abortion regulatory scheme. The case was dismissed without prejudice. On January 30, 2019, the State filed an appeal of the district court’s decision.
Because the Kansas Attorney General continues to assert to the court that other Kansas regulators, who are not parties to the litigation, could enforce the enjoined law, we filed this new case, naming the other regulators as defendants, on January 30, 2019. Following a hearing, our motion for a preliminary injunction was denied on July 8; the trial court also granted the Board of Healing Arts’ request to be dismissed from the case. We filed an appeal, which is now fully briefed, and are now awaiting on oral argument date.
On March 31, 2020, we filed an emergency motion with the Kansas Court of Appeals requesting an injunction to block the in-person requirement for medication abortion while the appeal is pending in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The appellate court denied the motion on April 10. On March 31, 2021, the State moved to stay the case pending the outcome of a vote on a ballot initiative in August 22. Oral argument took place at the Kansas Court of Appeals on September 9. Awaiting a ruling.