Challenge to Kansas abortion ban on fetal procedure to go before judge

Associated Press in Topeka, Kansas
Thursday 25 June 2015 13.23 BST

An abortion rights group will ask a Kansas judge Thursday to block the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on what it says is the most common method for terminating second-trimester pregnancies, contending that the new law would force some women to either accept higher medical risks or forgo abortions.

But the state’s lawyers were expected to argue in Shawnee County district court that abortion providers have safe alternatives to the procedure, which anti-abortion activists describe as dismembering a fetus. District judge Larry Hendricks’ hearing in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights comes just six days before the ban takes effect, and the group is asking him to block it at least until its lawsuit is heard.

The National Right to Life Committee drafted the ban as model legislation for states. Kansas was the first to enact it, though Oklahoma followed with a statute set to take effect in November. The center’s lawsuit said the ban applies to a procedure used in 95% of second trimester abortions nationally.

“It’s among the most extreme restrictions that we’ve seen,” said Janet Crepps, a senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It’s a ban on the most common method in the second trimester.”

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