Kansas lawmakers overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of the CARE Act, protecting pregnancy resource centers from abortion mandates and preserving their freedom to offer life-affirming care to women and families.
The Kansas Legislature last week overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of House Bill 2635, which expands protections for pregnancy resource centers and limits certain forms of state regulation over their services.
Kelly, a Democrat, had rejected the bill earlier in the day, arguing that it would insert government into private medical decisions. “That means we shouldn’t be spending tax dollars trying to interfere with that very personal, very private, medical decision,” she said. “That’s why I’m vetoing this bill.”
Within hours, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature moved to override her decision. The House voted 87-35, and the Senate followed shortly thereafter with a 30-9 vote.
The measure, known officially as the Pregnancy Center Autonomy and Rights of Expression Act, or CARE Act, protects pregnancy centers from certain regulatory requirements tied to how they communicate and provide services related to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting.
For example, the new law ensures that state agencies can’t force pregnancy resource centers to promote or provide abortions, including abortion pills, or to hire personnel whose beliefs are contrary to the centers’ pro-life mission or operating principles. The state also is not allowed to interfere in the centers’ ability to provide information, resources, or medical services before, during, after pregnancy.
The bill, backed by Kansans for Life, also creates pathways for centers to challenge government actions they believe violate the law. The state’s Office of Judicial Administration said the change could increase caseloads in district courts.
In a statement following the veto, Kansans for Life said:
“The Kansas Legislature wasted no time overriding Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of the CARE Act. Despite efforts by a pro-abortion governor and pro-abortion lawmakers to block it, Kansas will soon protect the more than 50 pregnancy centers across our state from government discrimination.
Republican leaders also defended the legislation and criticized the governor’s veto.
“This governor is quick to talk about supporting choice, but that support disappears the moment a mother chooses life,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins said in a statement.
Senate President Ty Masterson called the bill “good legislation that saves lives,” adding that it “simply protects pregnancy resource centers’ ability to educate mothers and provide life-affirming care.”
The override marks another key battle over abortion policy in Kansas. In 2022, voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed the legislature to impose stricter abortion regulations.
But the Kansas Legislature has been filling the gap to try to save as many lives as possible.
In 2024, for example, it overrode the governor’s veto of four pro-life bills. As a result, Kansas now has a law in place that criminalizes the act of coercing pregnant women into having an abortion against their will and also collects data (on a voluntary basis) to find out why women seek abortions, so the state can better determine what resources or support would help women choose to keep their baby. In addition, lawmakers were able to provide renewed funding for the Kansas Pregnancy Compassion Act, which provides grant monies to pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes.
In 2025, the Kansas Legislature also overrode the governor’s veto of the “Help Not Harm Act,” which bans physicians from providing gender-affirming treatments, including performing gender transition surgeries or prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers. In many cases, these drugs are provided by Planned Parenthood, which has four clinics in Kansas. Lawmakers secured the two-thirds majority needed to override the governor’s rejection of the bill, with the Senate voting 31-9 and the House following with an 85-34 vote.
The Kansas Legislature’s decision to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s most recent veto is more than a procedural move. It is a declaration about what Kansas is willing to protect.
Pregnancy resource centers exist because many women face unplanned pregnancies under pressure and a lack of support. These centers step into that gap with counseling, material assistance, and ongoing care. They do not profit from crisis. They meet it with compassion. Efforts to burden them with additional regulation are often framed as protecting women, but in practice they restrict their options.
Supporters of the governor’s decision to try to kill the bill argue that government should stay out of private medical decisions. Yet that argument weakens when it pushes policies that marginalize organizations offering women an alternative. Without pregnancy centers, many women are left with fewer resources and less support to choose life.
The truth is that it’s the pro-abortion movement that has made this issue political. Gov. Kelly isn’t concerned about women’s privacy or about women generally; she is a full-throated supporter of abortion.
What’s more, her veto of this legislation comes in the wake of a national left-wing terror and smear campaign against pregnancy resource centers. In 2022, more than 80 of them were vandalized and even firebombed. In pro-abortion states like New York, Illinois, California, Vermont, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, laws have been passed censoring what pro-life pregnancy centers can say to pregnant women; attorneys general have sued pregnancy resource centers for trying to save lives; politicians have labeled them as “brainwashing cult clinics”; and agencies have run multi-million dollar advertising campaigns designed to scare pregnant women away from using their services.
Kansas’s CARE Act ensures that organizations committed to helping pregnant women are not targeted or burdened by political agendas. It protects their ability to operate according to their pro-life mission without being forced to tout or serve a pro-abortion agenda.
There is also a deeper moral reality at stake. A society that fails to defend its most vulnerable cannot claim to be just. Unborn children have no voice or ability to defend themselves. Laws like this one are a way a state can acknowledge their inherent worth.
The Kansas Legislature’s rescue of this law sends a strong message that life matters, and those who defend it will not be pushed aside. Protecting pregnancy resource centers is not extreme. It is a basic expression of a culture that values both compassion and truth.
Kansas lawmakers should be lauded for making a principled choice. They stood for life in a contested moment, affirming the principle that every life has inherent worth and is worth protecting.
If you believe mothers deserve real support and every unborn child bears God-given worth, stand with the Standing for Freedom Center. Your gift helps us defend life, advance truth, and equip Americans to protect the most vulnerable.
