Sam Brownback Urges Pro-Life People to Keep Fighting Abortion

Former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Friday urged pro-life advocates to keep fighting abortion through moral persuasion after voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have changed how the state selects Supreme Court justices.

The amendment, defeated August 4 by a 61% to 39% margin, sought to allow voters to elect justices rather than continue the current appointment system. Pro-life supporters saw the measure as essential to counter a court that has repeatedly protected and expanded abortion.

“I’m disappointed that the amendment didn’t pass, but it should have passed,” Brownback told a packed crowd at the Wichita Pachyderm Club, a Republican group.

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He added, “We would have just been going back to the way Kansas picked its Supreme Court for the first 100 years of our statehood. You would have gone back to that system.”

The Kansas Supreme Court invented a right to abortion in a 2019 ruling and has since nullified most of the state’s pro-life laws. Eight of the nine current justices were appointed by Democrat governors who favored abortion.

Abortions in Kansas climbed from 6,916 in 2019 to 19,811 in 2024 — a 187% increase that has turned the state into an abortion destination.

Brownback, who as governor signed more than 25 pro-life provisions into law, including some of the nation’s strongest at the time, said the pro-life movement must now focus on changing hearts rather than relying solely on legislation – even though it has done both for decades.

“On the life issue, we ought to switch to really emphasizing some key cases on it, like the percentage of Down syndrome children that are killed in utero,” Brownback said. “I think we ought to start and say, ‘Maybe we want the number of Down syndrome abortions to be cut in half in five years.’ And we’re not going to pass a law to do that. We’re going to do that by moral persuasion to the public.”

He continued: “A Down syndrome child — properly treated and trained and educated — can live to be 50 to 60 and live a pretty normal life. They’re a wonderful gift to the rest of us as a society. Difficult situation for parents and families, of course, but people come around and help, and they’re a gift. I would like us to go at kind of some different tactical lines like that, and just make it more personal that way, I think, because we’ve got to change the heart of the public on this.”

The defeat follows the 2022 rejection of the Value Them Both amendment, which would have removed the fictitious right to abortion from the state constitution and lost 59% to 41%.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman described the Kansas Supreme Court as “one of the most radically leftist, if not downright corrupt courts in the nation,” noting that electing justices would have given Kansans a direct voice in its makeup.

Newman called for electing a fully pro-life governor this November to end policies that he said have wiped out decades of pro-life legislation and cost thousands of innocent lives each year.