PITTSBURG – Earlier this week, Operation Rescue hosted a joint press conference with Family Council Arkansas and Students for Life of America outside of a newly opened Planned Parenthood Kansas abortion clinic.
Located in the quiet college town of Pittsburg, Kansas, the facility is less than two miles from the campus of Pittsburg State University, and within easy driving distance of three neighboring states – all of which are currently abortion-free.
Speakers at the press conference sought to make the community keenly aware of Planned Parenthood’s brutal agenda for their quiet town, aiming to abort babies from four different states – Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas – as well as exploit vulnerable college-aged mothers, Planned Parenthood’s favorite demographic.
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The most alarming statistics regarding abortion in Kansas came from speaker Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President Emeritus of Operation Rescue and an expert at analyzing abortion trends.
“So, last year,” Sullenger explained, “using Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates – they estimate month by month, [in] each state, how many abortions are done. It’s estimated that 20,550 abortions took place in Kansas. That’s a 201% increase from our low, and it’s quite a shocking amount. We’ve never had that many abortions in Kansas, not by a long shot.”
The “low” Sullenger refers to is from 2016, when state abortion statistics from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) showed that 6,820 abortions were committed that year.
She noted a little earlier in her statement that KDHE normally releases annual abortion statistics every February. However, the state agency has not released any data for 2023, forcing her to use the Guttmacher estimates.
Sullenger suspects the state statistics are being withheld because of how alarming this increase in abortions will be to Kansans, especially those who voted against the “Value Them Both” amendment in 2022. The loss at the ballot box opened the door for unfettered abortion across the state. It’s quite possible that pro-abortion officials don’t want the real-life consequences of that vote getting out before the Presidential election.
To give an idea of how devastating the estimate of 20,550 abortions committed in 2023 really is, Sullenger pointed out it’s almost exactly equal to the population of Pittsburg, Kansas.
“Think about it,” she said, “in Kansas, alone, the abortionists in this state aborted essentially the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in the city of Pittsburg – and next year will be worse.”
Taking the Guttmacher estimates for 2023, which showed a 27% increase in abortion, and applying that same formula for 2024, Sullenger predicts the number of babies killed by abortion in Kansas will be more than 26,000 in 2024.
And that estimate did not even factor in this new Pittsburg clinic that will target babies and women in four separate states.
A predicted 26,000 abortions is a whopping 227% increase from just eight years ago in 2016.
So, what changed? A timeline created by Sullenger shows key events that took place in Kansas and the nation that transformed Kansas from a conservative state with pro-life laws into an abortion wasteland with little to no protections for preborn persons.
- In 2019, a pro-abortion panel of judges for the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that a “right to abortion” was protected in the state constitution.
- In 2021, the Biden/Harris administration – the most pro-abortion administration this nation has seen to date – had begun its steady work of expanding, protecting, and celebrating child-killing across the nation.
- In 2022, just two months after the overturn of Roe, Kansans voted against the “Value Them Both” Amendment, which would have undone the 2019 ruling and established protections for preborn persons under the state constitution.
- In the same year, two new abortion businesses opened in the state, followed by the Pittsburg clinic opening in 2024. Almost overnight, Kansas went from having four abortion clinics in 2021, to having seven.
Regarding the “Value Them Both” amendment, Sullenger pointed out, “Abortions have sky-rocketed in Kansas, and I think if the people who voted against that Value Them Both amendment, if they had realized the consequences of that vote, they would never ever have conceived of doing that.”
The consequences are thousands upon thousands of innocent babies murdered on Kansas soil. And it’s going to be a long uphill battle before Kansans ever see this Pandora’s box begin to close.
In her final comments, Sullenger offered a crucial first step: “We can’t go and undo that election – for that initiative – we can’t undo that. But what we can do is we can make sure we’re registered to vote, and get out and vote for people who are not going to allow this state to murder a city’s-worth of people every year. That’s one of the most important things that you can do.”
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have made it clear that, if elected, they will put every influence and resource available towards expanding, protecting, and celebrating abortion – just like the current administration.
President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has publicly challenged Harris’s abortion extremism and her support of painful, late-term abortions; he has stated he will vote against the abortion amendment in Florida; and he has stated he will uphold the precedent established by the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe – something that never would have happened without Trump.
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman comments, “Pro-life Americans simply cannot sit this election out. We have to register to vote and we have to show up at the polls. Children in the womb don’t have the luxury of voting for the candidate that might save them from the violent act of abortion. All they have is us — the people who see them. The people who can speak for them. Harris will obliterate the preborn. Trump will stem the tide of child killing, just as he did in his last term. It’s that simple.”
*This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Project Coordinator for Operation Rescue.
Sarah Neely – Operation Rescue
Sarah Neely currently serves as Project Coordinator for Operation Rescue. She has been a pro-life advocate for nearly two decades, working with many national pro-life groups along the way, including thirteen years with CEC For Life. Over the years, Sarah has served as reporter, researcher, social media coordinator, executive assistant, or event planner — whatever the preborn babies need on that particular day of the week. With a BFA in Creative Writing, she is also a freelance editor and, most days, a poet.
