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Major wins last night for abortion rights spells huge victory for women's right to choose

The triumphs all came in states that could decide the 2024 presidential election.

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Gov. Wolf Stands Firm in Protecting Abortion Access in Pen… | Flickr

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, abortion-rights advocates have made key victories in multiple ballot initiatives.

Tuesday, Nov 7 saw three major wins.

One being in Virginia, where voters flipped the house of delegates to a Democrat majority and effectively rejected a Republican effort to take full control of the state government, which would have included Glenn Youngkin’s proposed 15-week abortion ban.

Another victory for reproductive rights activists happened Tuesday night in Ohio, where abortion rights were enshrined into the state’s constitution by an overwhelming vote of nearly 60% in favor

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The ballot measure’s language guarantees every person in Ohio the right “to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion,” and prohibits the state from “burdening, penalizing or prohibiting” those rights.

The amendment will essentially counteract the predominantly red state's “heartbeat bill” banning most abortions, which took effect immediately after the Dobbs decision but remains temporarily blocked.

This echoes a moment back in August when Kansas voters overwhelmingly struck down the “Value Them Both Amendment,” which would have removed key language that enshrined abortion rights in their state’s constitution.

And last and number three, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won re-election in red state Kentucky after supporting abortion rights as a core message of his re-election campaign.

Abortion rights advocates marked Tuesday’s success as a sign that by and large, Americans desire for women to have freedom of choice.

President Biden wrote that it “makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions.”


Meanwhile, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement: "Reproductive freedom is a winning issue, now and in November. Anti-choice lawmakers take note: The voters have spoken, and they will turn out at the ballot box to oppose efforts to restrict reproductive freedom."

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With the upcoming presidential election in 2024, abortion rights seem destined to be a key issue. And while that might mean more narratives around it are construed to create political divides throughout our country, so far that hasn’t appeared to be the reality for most Americans—who, even in more conservative leaning states, actively support a woman's right to choose.

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Kansas tried an old-fashioned economic experiment — and its schools suffered.

Kansas has been the site of a massive live experiment — and we can learn a lot from its results, especially in Trump's America.

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Civic Ventures

In 2010, Sam Brownback became the governor of Kansas with the goal of creating a conservative utopia out of Kansas.

The state would become the grand example of how to create prosperity and opportunity through ultra conservative principles, and there was one way Governor Brownback was going to get it there: a trickle-down economy.

Through tax cuts, money would trickle down to the middle and lower classes, creating jobs and expanding business. So, in 2012, Brownback cut income taxes, largely benefiting the wealthiest Kansans, and eliminated taxes entirely for the owners of 330,000 businesses and farms.

It would be "a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy," he wrote in an op-ed.

Only it wasn't.

Gov. Sam Brownback. Image via Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.

It's been four years since Kansas' economic experiment began. The state is financially unrecognizable.

By the end of 2015, Kansas had dropped to 39th in the country for job growth. The state has been downgraded in its credit rating. And researchers currently project budget shortfalls in the state totaling $1.1 billion through June 2019. The tax cuts that were supposed to jumpstart the economy and create jobs have actually done the opposite.

To help close the widening deficit gap, Brownback has dipped into the funding pool of public services and programs. Over and over again.

Health care, Medicaid, infrastructure, mental health services, and welfare have all been severely hit.

And one of the places where you can see the most impact of these funding cuts? In the classroom.

Since 2009, classrooms have gained more than 19,000 students, with 665fewer teachers. Crowded classrooms mean full-time teachers are no longer able to give as much individual attention to their students, and yet the students keep pouring in.

The day begins at Plum Creek Elementary. Image via Travis Morisse/AP Photo/The Hutchinson News.

It's not any better for part-time educators either.

"Because of tight budgets, we hire most of our para-educators for five and three-quarter hours so we don't have to pay them health insurance," says Kim Schneweis, art teacher at Hays Middle School.

"These are adults working with our most vulnerable students, and they make less than $10,000 a year and aren't provided health insurance," she adds. "This is inhumane to the employees. They work very hard with students who need so much help.  This creates a revolving door.  Even though we have caring people who love working with these students, they cannot live on that little of pay."

Students in class at Haven High School. Image via Sandra J. Milbur/AP Photo/The Hutchinson News.

Then you have some school districts with no choice but to end their school year early because of lack of funding. At least eight school districts prematurely closed in 2015.

"It's crazy times," Mike Sanders, the superintendent of one the affected school districts, told Bloomberg: “The ideology in this tax experiment has gone too far. It’s almost as if they’re hell-bent on proving their point, no matter the damage it causes.”

Teachers are also fed up with it. Some are leaving their jobs for better teaching opportunities in neighboring states or are quitting education altogether.  In 2012-13, the average teaching salary was just $47,464, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, making Kansas one of the top 10 worst states for pay.

The number of teachers leaving the state nearly doubled in the last four years, reported the Lawrence Journal-World, and the neighboring state of Missouri has even placed billboards in Kansas to encourage teachers to teach there instead.

Spotted on I-70 near Lawrence, Kansas. Image via Orlin Wagner/AP Photo.

This teacher shortage has created many un-ideal situations,like when six school systems were allowed to hire unlicensed teachers to make up for it in 2015. And budget cuts have meant a big decrease to the fun parts of school: elective classes and extracurricular activities.

"The kids don’t disappear when we cut teaching positions," says Schneweis. "They still need a full schedule of classes, but we don’t have enough electives to put them in."

And they don't have enough funding for each student either. 96% of districts agreed that state aid per pupil was insufficient in 2015, and continuing to decline by the year. That sets up students to fall behind later in life.

A study from Northwestern University shows that increasing funding for every student leads to higher wages and a reduction in adult poverty. Slashing per-pupil resources, especially for at-risk students, only helps to keep the cycle of poverty alive.

A student works on a video for the yearbook. Image via Travis Morisse/AP Photo/The Hutchinson News.

This trickle-down economic experiment is jeopardizing the future of Kansas.

Neglecting the needs of teachers and students and creating barriers to a proper education is not creating a competitive workforce, let alone a "conservative utopia." Even the Supreme Court has said so.

This exchange would make a great caption contest. Image via John Milburn/AP Photo.

Luckily, Kansans are taking notice.

In the 2016 primary, a large number of legislators were voted out in lieu of more moderate ones who oppose the state's drastic economic approach. That's a start.

Brownback's experiment is a cautionary tale at what happens when you use large tax cuts for those already at the top to spark economic growth: It doesn't work.

And that's the thing about experiments: You're supposed to listen to the findings, even if they aren't the results you wanted. If you ignore the data and prioritize your personal beliefs instead, you have a real shot at hurting the people you were put in charge to help in your state — or if Trump gets his way, the entire country.

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The delightful way a city rallied behind this Muslim man after a customer made a fuss.

Wichita, Kansas, knows how to stand up to bigotry.

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Treating kids like criminals just makes criminals. Kansas finally gets it.

Kansas Senate Bill 367 is a big deal.

Kansas has a major juvenile justice problem on its hands.

With more than 200 centers housing troubled youth across the state, Kansas has an abnormally high rate of young repeat offenders and a high rate of courts removing kids from their homes to stay in such facilities, KMBC 9 News reported. Those two facts could have something to do with one another (which actually makes a lot of sense).

That's why Senate Bill 367 — heralded as "the state’s premier piece of legislation in 2016" — is actually a big deal.


Senate Bill 367 prioritizes treatment and rehabilitation over punishment for many juvenile offenders in hopes it will keep kids from becoming criminals down the road.

Under the law, low-level offenders — kids who aren't considered a threat to public safety — will be less likely to be sentenced to a juvenile center for probation violations, according to The Topeka-Capital Journal. Instead, they'll stay with their families and participate in community programs that provide services like counseling and therapy.

Throughout the next five years, the number of kids sent to out-of-home facilities for their offenses will drop roughly 60%, The Kansas City Star reported. That will save the state about $72 million over that time period — funds that will be redirected toward the community programs.

A detention center for juveniles in France. Photo by Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images.

"Being smart on crime promotes public safety and the rehabilitation of youthful offenders so that they can become law-abiding citizens," saidGov. Sam Brownback, who signed the bill into law on April 11, 2016. "The legislation aligns our juvenile justice system with what the research shows works best to reduce victimization, keep families strong, and guide youth towards a better path."

Brownback is right — research has shown treatment over incarceration has better long-term effects for individuals and communities alike. So why aren't more states on board?

Detention centers are harmful to kids and make it less likely that kids who spend time there will become successful, stable adults. That affects all of us.

According to a report from the Justice Policy Institute, juvenile detention centers can have "a profoundly negative impact on young people’s mental and physical well-being, their education, and their employment." The nonprofit points out these centers can increase rates of depression and suicide among youth, and reduce their ability to retain a job after leaving.

What's more, juvenile centers — like the larger U.S. justice system — disproportionately harm minorities: Even when they commit the same crimes as their white counterparts, black and brown youth are more likely to be detained.

Photo via iStock.

On the other hand, there's plenty of research suggesting that treatment and rehabilitation services are successful at reducing recidivism, the act of falling back into criminal behavior, for adult and youth offenders alike.

Let's hope more state and federal officials take a hint from Kansas and prioritize the long-term wellbeing of our youth.

"The justice system, and therefore, policymakers, need to focus on the root causes of incarceration and on rehabilitation — not just punishment en masse," prisons reform author Christopher Zoukis wrote for The Huffington Post, noting our "youth can change and learn" before going too far down the wrong path.

"Kansas is taking steps in the right direction."

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