Vernon v. Kobach

At a Glance:

On May 29, 2025, Compassion Legal: the End-of-Life Justice center at Compassion & Choices, along with If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice and Irigonegaray & Revenaugh, filed Vernon v. Kobach, a lawsuit in Kansas state court challenging the constitutionality of the state’s Pregnancy Exclusion law. The Pregnancy Exclusion automatically invalidates a person’s advance directive if they are pregnant, stripping them of the right to make decisions about their own end-of- life care.

On May 22, 2026, Kansas Douglas County District Court Judge Mark Simpson ruled that Plaintiffs’ individual claims could move forward, rejecting Defendants’ attempt to dismiss the case.

The Details:

On May 29, 2025, we filed a lawsuit, in coordination with If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, and Irigonegaray & Revenaugh, in the Kansas state court, arguing that the Pregnancy Exclusion in the state’s advance directive law was unconstitutional. Pregnancy Exclusions force doctors to disregard their patients’ advance directives and potentially provide care against their clearly-expressed decisions if they are pregnant.

Kansas’s Natural Death Act recognizes that “adult persons have the fundamental right to control the decisions relating to the rendering of their own medical care, including the decision to have life-sustaining procedures withheld or withdrawn in instances of a terminal condition.” Kansas law denies this fundamental right to pregnant people, automatically invalidating their living wills through the Pregnancy Exclusion.

Patient Plaintiffs Emma Vernon, Abigail Ottaway, and Laura Stratton are three individuals capable of becoming pregnant who have executed advance directives that they want to be honored no matter what. They all either have children, want children, or were pregnant at the time the lawsuit was filed.

Physician Plaintiffs Dr. Bennett and Dr. Holman are both Kansas-licensed OB-GYNs who regularly provide treatment for pregnant and pregnancy-capable patients, and have provided end-of-life care to pregnant and birthing patients. The law compels them to disregard their patients’ end-of-life decisions, but does not specify what treatment they should provide to incapacitated and terminally-ill patients with suspended declarations. As a result, the law fails to provide them fair notice of what is required of them, subjecting them to arbitrary enforcement and legal and professional consequences. They bring this case on their own behalf, and on behalf of their patients.

The Pregnancy Exclusion singles out pregnant people and those capable of becoming pregnant, denying them fundamental constitutional rights afforded to everyone else. The law also places health care providers in an untenable position—forcing them to act without informed consent and leaving them vulnerable to punishment for respecting a patient’s clearly-expressed decisions.

The plaintiffs ask the court to affirm that the protections afforded under the Kansas Constitution apply equally to all and ensure that their most personal end-of-life decisions will be respected, regardless of their pregnancy status. Dr. Bennett and Dr. Holman further ask the court to prevent providers from facing legal or professional sanctions for honoring their patients’ end-of-life wishes.

The complaint asks the court to permanently prohibit Defendants “from enforcing the Pregnancy Exclusion by invalidating otherwise valid health care directives based on pregnancy status or bringing any adverse action against a provider for following the directions in a pregnant, incapacitated individual’s validly executed health care directive.”

On August 21, 2025, the state defendants filed a motion to dismiss, minimizing the harm caused by the Pregnancy Exclusion as “trivial,” as it would last no more than nine months. Our Plaintiffs responded on September 25, 2025, emphasizing the very real harms caused by the Pregnancy Exclusion to patients and their loved ones, and asked the court to hear the plaintiffs’ urgent claims.

On May 22, 2026, Kansas Douglas County District Court Judge Mark Simpson issued an opinion allowing all of Plaintiffs’ individual claims to move forward, largely denying Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. In his opinion, the Court found that the preemptive and automatic invalidation of a pregnant individual’s advance directive created a constitutional injury by depriving individuals of their right to refuse unwanted treatment and make fundamental decisions about their medical care.

The Court dismissed Physician-Plaintiffs’ third-party standing claims, which would have allowed the physician plaintiffs to assert claims on behalf of their pregnant patients. The Court found that, while there is a compelling argument to be made for third-party standing in this case, it is not permitted to expand current jurisprudence to recognize it here.

This page will be updated as the case continues to progress.

Everyone should have the right to plan for their end-of-life care, regardless of their pregnancy status. Compassion & Choices fully believes in the autonomy of all people when making their health care decisions. Compassion & Choices is closely monitoring pregnancy exclusions in other statutes and is working diligently to protect the healthcare decision-making rights of all people.

To learn more about pregnancy exclusions, please visit: https://compassionandchoices.org/resource/pregnancy-exclusions/.