Mark Gietzen, abortion foe who forced recount of Kansas vote, dies in plane crash at 69

A longtime conservative Republican and anti-abortion activist in Kansas who forced a recount of the state’s decisive vote affirming abortion rights last year has died in a plane crash at 69. The Kansas Republican Party said in a Facebook post that Mark Gietzen, of Wichita, died Tuesday night in Nebraska. Sedgwick County, Kansas, Commissioner Jim Howell told The Wichita Eagle that Gietzen had flown to Nebraska to visit his mother. Gietzen came to Kansas in the late 1970s to work for aircraft manufacturer Boeing and became active in Republican and anti-abortion politics. In August 2022, Gietzen covered most of the $120,000 cost of a hand recount of ballots in the vote on abortion rights.