Let These Tweets About Kansas Smacking Down Abortion Bans Cheer You Up Today

Since the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ballot measures have become a possible way for states to enshrine abortion rights within their legislative networks. Now, as the first state in the nation to place the fate of abortion rights directly into voters’ hands, Kansas has provided the country with a preview of what’s to come for reproductive freedoms all over the United States. These tweets about Kansas’ abortion ballot vote say everything you’re thinking about this huge victory for reproductive freedoms, and they’ll give you hope for the future.

In an Aug. 2 referendum, voters definitively cast their ballots to protect abortion rights in Kansas by rejecting the “Value Them Both” amendment in a 58.8 to 41.2 percent majority vote, per NPR. In real numbers, this means well over 500,000 people voted to preserve abortion rights protection in the state’s constitution.

The “Value Them Both” amendment would have changed the Kansas state constitution to remove protections for abortion, leaving the door open to lawmakers to pass whatever restrictions or bans they wanted. While the amendment wouldn’t have banned abortion outright, state lawmakers and anti-abortion advocates had been open about their intentions to pass restrictive legislation. Currently, abortion is legal in Kansas until 22 weeks — and with this amendment defeated, it looks to remain that way.

“At a time when reproductive freedom is under unprecedented threat across the country, Kansans said loud and clear at the ballot box: ‘We’ve had enough,’” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in an Aug. 2 statement shared with Elite Daily. “By safeguarding abortion access, Kansas voters aligned with the 8 in 10 Americans who support the legal right to abortion. In the heartland of the United States, protecting abortion access is galvanizing voters like never before, and that mobilization is only just beginning.”

Kansas’ defeat of the amendment is all the more important when you consider its geographic placement: With abortion bans in effect for a number of neighboring states, including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and others, Kansas is now the closest option for people seeking abortion throughout a wide swath of the country.

With the results in, people all over the internet are celebrating this huge win for abortion rights, and these tweets are so encouraging.

The battle for reproductive freedom is far from over in the United States. All over the country, advocates for reproductive freedom are organizing to codify abortion rights within their state’s legislative framework. “We are proud of our young people and organizers’ efforts on the ground to get out the vote under a banner of shared values and a rejection of extremism,” Kimberly Inez McGuire, Executive Director at URGE, said in an Aug. 2 statement shared with Elite Daily.

However, even as people across the nation are celebrating this win, McGuire highlighted there’s still much work to be done. “We will continue to elevate young people’s needs, priorities, and concerns until they are fully and finally addressed. Today's vote was a powerful rebuke and a promise of the mounting resistance,” she added in the statement. “Let the anti-abortion politicians know: the injustices and indignities they impose on us will not stand. Not in the nation young people are building.”