by Kathy Ostrowski at the KFL Blog

The political season is upon us, even though Kansas is awaiting judge-drawn maps to determine voting district boundaries for state senators, reps, school board and U.S. Congressional seats.

There’s no way to predict how equitable the judge-drawn state district maps Kansas will be, but the fight to retainpro-abortion Senatorial power played heavily into this situation.

Certain Republican Kansas Senators (whom the media calls “moderates”) have been trying to escape announced challenges from conservative, pro-life opponents.  They hoped to create contorted boundaries for their districts that would exclude their challengers in the face of the the growing strength of the Kansas pro-life electorate.

In the stories covering redistricting, the media groans that Kansas Republican conservative lawmakers want “moderates” eliminated, but the same media remained undisturbed by years of bare-knuckle politics against pro-life Senators from these moderates.

 Pro-life bills were prevented from getting hearings in the Kansas Senate because GOP moderates loaded all committees relevant to abortion with a pro-abortion majority and a pro-abortion committee chair.

To retain their pro-abortion voting block in the redistricting situation, moderates joined with Democrat Senators (all but one of whom is pro-abortion). In the past, both groups were supported for re-election with abortion-funding, although many citizens didn’t realize it!  For example, campaign postcards from certain abortion sources disguised their identity by signing the postcards with vague, innocent-sounding names like ‘citizens for progress.’  Such mailings identified the Senators as ‘pro education’, without mentioning the Senator’s pro-abortion position.

An insider to this postcard trickery, Julie Burkhart, has promised to open an abortion clinic in Wichita this year and created the TrustWomen PAC, the heir to George Tiller’s ProKanDo political action committee (see campaign tricks). TrustWomen has announced it will be helping re-elect their friends in the Kansas Senate, and it can be expected they may again hide their advocacy in certain campaign maneuvers.

Senators in Kansas who stifled pro-life legislation have reason to be dismayed that the pro-life electorate continues to solidify, as witnessed by Gallup poll results:

• this year, 50% of Americans identified themselves as pro-life vs 41% pro-choice;
• during the past two years 58 – 61% thought abortion should be legal in none, or only a few, circumstances, whereas in 1994 that sector was only 51 %.

Pro-life members of both major parties are increasing, according to Gallup poll history. This year, Republicans self-identified as 78% pro-life / 22% pro-choice while in 2003 the split was 56%/39%. Democrats this year identify as 34% pro-life vs 58% pro-choice— which is only a few points more pro-life than they were in 2003.

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