{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-rep-sharice-davids-local-leaders-call-increased-protections-reproductive", "ICYMI: Rep. Sharice Davids, Local Leaders Call for Increased Protections for Reproductive Freedoms", "2024-06-26", "2024", "2024-06", "Democrat", "House", "KS", "Sharice Davids", "D000629", "davids.house.gov", "davids", "https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Earlier this week, on the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Representative Sharice Davids (KS-03) visited Planned Parenthood Great Plains to discuss the importance of protecting reproductive rights in Kansas. Davids called on U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Johnson to pass the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act, which would guarantee abortion access across the country. Despite Kansans\u2019 strong support of reproductive freedoms, extremists at the Kansas state level have recently doubled down on their quest to restrict reproductive health care access.\n\nDavids\u2019 efforts to protect reproductive rights for Kansans made headlines across Kansas:\n\nKansas Reflector: On Dobbs decision anniversary, Kansas abortion rights supporters look to next battle\n\n\u201cWhile states across the country moved swiftly to restrict access to abortion after the court struck down Roe v. Wade, Kansas voters opted to keep protections in place. Now, a leading abortion rights advocate says, the next fight could be over allowing patients to travel to receive abortions.\n\n\u2018That is coming,\u2019 said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes. \u2018Legislators are not ending their attacks on abortion. They\u2019re just getting more nuanced.\u2019\n\nWales spoke Monday alongside U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat, at a press conference on the anniversary of the Supreme Court\u2019s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which struck down Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that guaranteed the right to an abortion.\n\nDavids said she has heard from constituents over and over that they fear their children and grandchildren \u2018are going to grow up with fewer rights than they did.\u2019 And despite Kansas voters\u2019 decision to keep abortion protected under the state constitution, Davids noted anti-abortion legislators continue to add restrictions and hurdles to patients seeking access.\n\n\u2018And any day now, we anticipate a decision from the Supreme Court that has the potential to once again erode or rip away health care, reproductive health care rights and, again, puts women at serious risk of not just illness but death,\u2019 Davids said.\n\nShe called it \u2018unacceptable and concerning\u2019 and said pro-abortion rights Americans were not being heard.\n\n\u2018Have we not made our voices clear?\u2019 Davids said. \u2018Have we not made our intentions and desires as citizens of this country clear? We should be expanding access to reproductive health care.\u2019\n\nWales called the anniversary of the Dobbs decision a \u2018solemn occasion,\u2019 saying Planned Parenthood patients went from being able to make their own decisions to \u2018having the government interfere directly.\u2019\n\n\u2018We are fortunate to be in a state where we do have access to abortion,\u2019 Wales said, \u2018and we are now serving so many patients from out of state. We are seeing firsthand what a public health crisis looks like in Kansas.\u2019\n\nThe Kansas Supreme Court in 2019 ruled the state constitution\u2019s right to bodily autonomy extends to the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Kansas voters then rejected a constitutional amendment to remove the right to an abortion by a 59-41 margin in August 2022, two months after the Dobbs decision.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nPlanned Parenthood is also challenging legislation passed by Kansas lawmakers \u2014 over Gov. Laura Kelly\u2019s veto \u2014 this spring that requires patients to answer a series of questions about whether they have been raped, if their partner is abusive or whether the pregnancy resulted from incest before receiving an abortion.\u201d\n\nKCTV News: Kansans share views on post-Roe world two years after Supreme Court reversal\n\n\u201cOn June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned its 1973 decision on Roe v. Wade. Missouri immediately banned abortions, while Kansans rejected a ballot amendment that would have granted state lawmakers the authority to regulate abortion access in the state.\n\nTwo years after the monumental decision, U.S. Representative Sharice Davids joined leaders from Planned Parenthood Great Plains (PPGP) to share their views on the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court.\n\nThey sat together inside the Planned Parenthood on West 109th Street on Monday morning, taking a deeper dive into the abortion policies impacting Kansans, Missourians, and those living in nearby states who travel to Kansas for assistance.\n\nSome panelists shared the potential for violence they see or have already seen. Others spoke of the day-to-day rhetoric that politicians use when discussing reproductive health in statehouses and Washington D.C. They also talked about how to continue building support for their stance on reproductive health.\n\n\u2018I can\u2019t stand here and pretend that this is not unacceptable,\u2019 said Davids. \u2018I can only ask, have we not made our voices clear? Have we not made our intentions and desires as citizens of this country clear?\u2019\n\n[\u2026]\n\nPPGP President and CEO Emily Wales said Planned Parenthood locations have seen an increase in people arriving in Kansas for help, saying the state has had patients from Arkansas, Florida, and Texas, among others. She said the influx is affecting their operations, but although wait times have increased, patients are not turned away.\u201d\n\nKMBC News:\n\n\u201cNow, shortly after that Dobbs decision, Kansas voters were among the first to weigh in, voting down an amendment to remove the right to an abortion in the Kansas constitution. But challenges in the state remain.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nEven before that August 2022 vote, [\u2026] back in 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state's constitution allowed abortions, paving the way for the current Kansas law that allows abortions up to 22 weeks right now.\n\nGreat Plains Planned Parenthood and Congresswoman Sharice Davids held a roundtable discussion today on the anniversary of that Dobbs decision. They say they are concerned that even after the vote in 2022, several state leaders and lawmakers want to find ways to restrict access to abortions.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:11:47Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-rep-sharice-davids-local-leaders-call-increased-protections-reproductive"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.976508017629385, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}