Lawsuit Challenges Kansas Law That Voids Living Wills for Pregnant Women
(And the fucking, patriarchal, christofascist WAR ON WOMEN continues apace)
Lawsuit Challenges Kansas Law That Voids Living Wills for Pregnant Women
PUBLISHED 6/3/2025 by Carrie N. Baker
In 28 states, if you’re pregnant, the government can ignore your end-of-life wishes—no matter what you’ve written.
Abortion rights protest the overturn of Roe v. Wade in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, 2022. (Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Reproductive freedom advocates filed a lawsuit, Vernon v. Kobach, on May 29 challenging the constitutionality of a Kansas law that automatically invalidates a person’s end-of-life treatment decisions in their living will if they are pregnant. The case argues that this law violates pregnant patient’s constitutional rights to bodily autonomy, privacy and equal treatment under Kansas law. Kansas is one of 28 states that restrict advance directives during pregnancy—16 based on the potential of fetal survival and 12 regardless of fetal survival.
Advance directives are written documents that detail the end-of-life treatment you would or wouldn’t want if you are terminally ill or suffering a life-threatening medical event and unable to communicate treatment decisions yourself. If you are pregnant, however, those documents may be invalidated by your state’s laws. (Pregnancy Justice)
The plaintiffs include three Kansas women—one who is pregnant, one who has children and a third who wants children in the future—along with two Kansas OB-GYN physicians, who are represented by Compassion & Choices, If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice and Irigonegaray & Revenaugh law firm. “Our plaintiffs are simply asking for the same fundamental rights the Kansas Constitution guarantees to all Kansans,” said Jess Pezley, senior staff attorney at Compassion & Choices. “Categorically stripping individuals of their right to make deeply personal end-of-life decisions because they are pregnant is not only offensive, it’s fundamentally at odds with the values enshrined in the Kansas Constitution.”
When she died, Adriana Smith was already a mother to one young son. (Facebook)
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These photos show pregnancy tissue extracted at five to nine weeks of pregnancy, rinsed of blood and menstrual lining. The images show the tissue in a petri dish next to a ruler to indicate its size. Adriana Smith was approximately nine weeks pregnant when she was declared brain-.. . . . . .
Two doctors, Dr. Michele Bennett and Dr. Lynley Holman, are also challenging the pregnancy exclusion, arguing that the pregnancy exclusion forces physicians to violate their ability to ethically practice medicine and exposes them as well as other providers to civil, criminal and regulatory sanctions. “As a physician, I am deeply committed to honoring my patients’ autonomy and safeguarding their privacy. When a law compels me to act against my patients’ clearly expressed decisions, it not only undermines the trust at the heart of the patient-provider relationship, but also threatens the ethical foundation of medical care,” said Dr. Holman of Lawrence, Kansas. “Every individual deserves the dignity of making their own health care decisions without unwanted intrusion—and no provider should face legal or professional consequences for honoring that dignity.”
The complaint asks the court to permanently prohibit the state from enforcing the pregnancy exclusion—restoring pregnant women’s right to have their end-of-life decisions honored, just like anyone else. “I have lived in Kansas for almost 65 years; I have spent decades defending the constitutional rights of its people. Kansans greatly value their individual rights and personal freedom,” said Pedro Irigonegaray, partner at Irigonegaray & Revenaugh. “The Pregnancy Exclusion betrays those values by denying pregnant people the right to control their own medical decisions.” “Across the country, people are shocked and horrified to learn that their end-of-life directives might be invalidated because they are pregnant,” said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How. “Everyone deserves to be able to make decisions about their body and their life; pregnancy is no excuse to deny someone’s fundamental rights.”
https://msmagazine.com/2025/06/03/kansas-living-will-law-void-pregnant-women/
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