TOPEKA — A regional abortion provider is rolling out vasectomy services in Kansas as part of a toolkit to keep reproductive choices secure at the family level.

The move comes after increased demand as multiple states attempt to chip away at reproductive rights.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains is hosting a low-cost two-day vasectomy clinic at its Kansas City, Kansas, health center May 30-31 to kick off the service, which will continue to be offered at the center.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains president and CEO Emily Wales said the decision came after increased demand following the 2022 federal overturn of abortion protections.

“We don’t see hesitation,” Wales said. “We see folks who are really appreciative, excited. It is a pretty cool thing I think, to have patients here who are saying openly, ‘This moment is a terrible one for sexual and reproductive health care. And this is a thing I can do to help take care of my family and my loved ones. And I’m going to do it for all of us.’ ”

While Kansas is one of the few states in the region left that protects abortion — legal up to 22 weeks of gestation — the state has been flooded with out-of-state travelers needing abortion services. Kansas has six centers that provide abortions, but one has shut down services with no set deadline to reopen after staff changes.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains has added a handful of appointments to mitigate the effect of the shutdown, but the organization is already dealing with a heavy workload. The organization will be expanding access this fall, opening a center in southeast Kansas to keep up with demand.

Wales estimated the boom in demand began in 2021, when the Texas Legislature initiated a six-week abortion ban, prompting a wave of Texans traveling to Kansas for abortion care. The 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade increased need, especially after Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana banned abortion.

In-state abortion providers have also had to contend with a web of abortion restrictions passed by a Republican-dominated Legislature. While Kansas voters in August of 2022 overwhelmingly defeated a constitutional amendment meant to take away the right to terminate a pregnancy, lawmakers have continuously tried to restrict the procedure, adding more regulations to the Women’s Right to Know Act, a patchwork legislation governing the state’s abortion protocols.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains and other abortion providers in-state have ongoing litigation against several provisions in the act, most recently challenging an “abortion survey” law passed in 2024.

“We’re not strangers to having to adapt our processes, make changes, go through hurdles and hoops,” Wales said. “But in a state like Kansas, where you have a constitutional protection to access this care, we shouldn’t be going through any of those hurdles and hoops.”

To combat state restrictions, the organization launched vasectomy services last year starting with a Tulsa, Oklahoma, center and expanding through Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. The organization has completed 189 vasectomy procedures to date.

“Providing accessible reproductive and sexual health care is at the core of our mission to empower individuals to lead healthy, autonomous lives,” said Iman Alsaden, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

The overall rate of U.S. vasectomy procedures has increased since the end of Roe, becoming a more popular birth control option as states imposed partial or total abortion bans. The procedure is permanent, can be accomplished in one appointment and is relatively cheap compared to other methods of birth control such as IUDS. Planned Parenthood Great Plains estimates a cost of $250 to $750 for a vasectomy during the two-day clinic.

“We saw a bump in patients requesting IUD implants and I think vasectomy is kind of the same reaction where folks were caught off guard, shocked by what the Supreme Court did, shocked by the idea that the government could control such personal decisions,” Wales said. “And so vasectomy feels like a way to take back some of that control over your own body and your own future.”

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

TOPEKA — The former CEO of a shuttered southwest Kansas bank has been charged with embezzling millions from the financial institution before it closed.

Shan Hanes, an Elkhart resident, served as the CEO of Heartland Tri-State Bank until the bank went defunct in July.

At the time, Kansas banking commissioner David Herndon said the bank had become insolvent due to a “huge scam,” though he didn’t provide any details of what any potential crimes entailed.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took control of the bank’s operations. It reopened in July under the Dream First Bank name after the FDIC brokered a deal to transfer bank operations to that organization.

On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Kansas announced that Hanes, 52, was charged on one count of bank embezzlement. Hanes is accused of embezzling about $47.1 million through a series of wire transfers between May and July 2023, purchasing cryptocurrency for himself with the funds, according to court documents.

Hanes will appear in court Feb. 28. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

TOPEKA — A new bill would change Kansas law to allow pregnant women to claim child support for medical and pregnancy-related expenses, starting any time after the date of conception.

Critics say the bill is a blatant attempt to sneak the anti-abortion concept of “fetal personhood” into the state, where Kansas voters have previously upheld abortion rights. Fetal personhood is the idea that life begins at the fertilization of an egg and that fetuses should be given legal rights and protections.

Reproductive rights advocates as well as medical professionals have pushed back forcefully.

“This is a tactic that is used to make it easier to enact anti-abortion laws down the road,” said Taylor Morton of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes. “It is in direct opposition to broad public support for abortion access in Kansas. Furthermore, you know, the lack of clarity in this bill really makes it unworkable.”

Sen. Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, requested the introduction of Senate Bill 425, heard Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill would amend a Kansas family statute to include “unborn children” under the legal definition of child. Any embryo “in utero, at any stage of gestation,” starting from the moment of fertilization, would be considered an unborn child. Courts would be required to add medical and pregnancy-related expenses to the list of factors they consider when adopting rules for child support. The legislation also specifies these expenses cannot include any costs related to “elective abortions.”

Anti-abortion groups spoke in favor of the legislation during Monday’s hearing.

“We believe that every life is valuable and that every woman should be surrounded by a system of support during her pregnancy,” said Brittany Jones director of policy and engagement for anti-abortion organization Kansas Family Voice.

Mackenzie Haddix, spokeswoman for anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, said the change could cut down on abortion by offering prospective mothers financial assistance.

“Overall, no woman should ever feel that abortion is her only option,” Haddix said.

Kansas doesn’t include provisions for unborn children because parental relationships aren’t legally established until after a child is born and paternity confirmed. Pregnancy-related costs are settled through judgments after a child is born.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Kansas has become one of the few states left in the region that protects abortion rights. State law allows abortions up to 22 weeks after gestation and after that if the mother’s life is in danger.

The Kansas Supreme Court in 2019 determined the state constitution’s right to bodily autonomy extends to the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Voters in August of 2022 overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to ban abortion without exception.

The GOP-dominated Legislature has continued to put forward anti-abortion legislation despite widespread state support for abortion rights.

Sen. Ethan Corson, D-Prairie Village, warned fellow lawmakers about the reach of the bill during the hearing.

“It strikes me that enshrining fetal personhood into our statutes would have far-reaching implications on a whole host of civil and criminal laws, and I’m not sure that the committee has a good grasp on that,” Corson said. “I’d like to just have a better understanding of the fetal personhood aspects of this legislation.”

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

TOPEKA — Former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody did not remember the Miranda warning when he forced Marion County Record newspaper staff out into the nearly 100-degree heat during a raid that drew international condemnation.

Cody “couldn’t recall the wording of the warning” when he attempted to interrogate Record reporter Phyllis Zorn, according to a new federal lawsuit. He had to get a printed copy of the Miranda warning from one of his colleagues to continue interrogations of reporter Deb Gruver, but he “realized he did not have his reading glasses with him and he could not read the card.”

Cody then had one of his officers read Gruver the warning.

Zorn filed the second federal lawsuit in the case Tuesday. She asks for $950,000 to be awarded and alleges constitutional violations during the raid.

Zorn’s seizure disorder has been exacerbated by the stress of the raid, according to the lawsuit.

“Prior to the raid, her seizures were under good medical control and she had gone as long as five years without a seizure,” the lawsuit reads. “The seizures have been debilitating and have led to extreme depression and anxiety.”

Defendants in the case include the city of Marion, Mayor David Mayfield, Cody, interim Police Chief Zach Hudlin, the Marion County Commission, Marion County Sheriff Jeff Soyez and sheriff’s office investigator Aaron Christner.

Cody initiated the unprecedented Aug. 11 rural newspaper raid under the pretense that Zorn committed identity theft when she accessed public records through the Kansas Department of Revenue database. The agency later said that was a legal way for reporters to access information.

During the raid, Cody, along with four police officers and two sheriff’s deputies, took cell phones and other electronic devices from the newsroom. Officers also searched Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer’s home, along with the residence of a city councilwoman. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, the newspaper’s co-owner, died a day after the raid. The stress of the raid is believed to have been a factor in her death.

Gruver, a veteran Record reporter, filed a federal lawsuit in August for emotional and physical injury during the raid.

Though the Record didn’t publish the information before the raid, Gruver had compiled allegations made against Cody by his former colleagues with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department. According to the reporting, Cody left Kansas City under the threat of demotion, following accusations of offensive behavior and creating a hostile work environment.

Three sources told the Record that Cody had driven over a dead body at a crime scene, Zorn’s lawsuit alleges. Her lawsuit adds that Cody had attempted to persuade her into leaving the paper and starting her own news outlet – with investment from him – after learning about the Record’s reporting.

“The plaintiff laughed off the suggestion, not understanding the depth of his anger at the Record. When Mrs. Zorn disclaimed any interest in his proposal, she was moved to Cody’s enemy list,” the lawsuit reads.

Other portions of the lawsuit detail officers’ body camera footage from the raid, including footage of officers searching for records about Cody.

The lawsuit describes the chief rummaging through Gruver’s desk drawer and rifling through her files on him. Captured audio depicts Cody stating that he is hungry and that the officers should “just take them all” in reference to the Record’s computers and equipment, so they could “get the f*** out of here.”

Other footage includes Cody using the bathroom at Casey’s General Store between raiding homes.

“While Chief Cody did not turn off his body camera while relieving himself, he apparently chose to turn it off while he reviewed Gruver’s file on him, for the Marion Police Department did not produce any body camera footage from Cody of him looking through Gruver’s file on him,” the lawsuit reads.

After finishing the raid, Cody had a “pizza party” with the county sheriff to debrief him, according to the lawsuit.

Cody told Soyez that it “made his day” to yank Gruver’s phone out of her hand during the raid. Soyez then told him that his body camera was still on, and Cody had Hudlin turn it off, saying he couldn’t “get this damn thing to turn off,” the lawsuit states.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.