Just hours after voters passed a constitutional amendment aimed at protecting reproductive rights in Missouri — making it the first state to overturn a near-total ban on abortion — key backers of the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative filed a lawsuit in Kansas City seeking to effectuate the will of the voters.
“The voters of Missouri have said, ‘enough,’” reads the suit filed by Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates. “This amendment returns reproductive health care decisions back to where they belong: with individuals and their trusted health care providers, not Missouri politicians.”
While the measure, known as Amendment 3, provides a seemingly expansive view of reproductive rights, including abortion, the groups must take legal action to give it force and effect. In other words, the amendment will not do the job on its own; instead, lawsuits will be necessary to challenge statutes — including the abortion ban — that are currently on the books. The Wednesday lawsuit takes on more than a dozen state laws, which advocates argue now conflict with the state constitution’s explicit protection for reproductive rights. The amendment takes effect December 5; the providers are asking the courts to take action now so that abortion services can be restored promptly thereafter.
The office of Attorney General Andrew Bailey, which would be tasked with defending the state’s existing abortion laws in court, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During a Wednesday afternoon press conference, representatives of the state’s two Planned Parenthood affiliates, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, said they are challenging laws that pose an immediate barrier to providing abortion and that three clinics in the state — in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia, home to the University of Missouri’s flagship campus — will be ready to reopen their doors in a month. “If able, we plan to immediately restart services,” said Richard Muniz, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers interim president and CEO.
Along with the state’s abortion ban, the advocates are challenging several other laws that impose gestational age limits on abortion — including one that bars abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, well before many people know they’re pregnant, and laws that prohibit abortion after 14, 18, and 20 weeks.
Amendment 3 allows for some regulation of abortion after the point of fetal viability — that is, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb absent “extraordinary” medical efforts. In a seeming effort to constrict the state’s Republican supermajority legislature from penning any one unilateral standard, the measure also tasks health care providers with defining viability on a case-by-case basis. Whether that works to stave off legislative attacks remains to be seen — and would likely prompt further litigation.
The advocates are also challenging state laws that place onerous and medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion providers — what are commonly known as targeted restrictions on abortion providers, or TRAP, laws. These are laws passed under the guise of ensuring patient health and safety but are imposed only on abortion providers and not on doctors or medical facilities providing any other kind of health care. This includes provisions that impose a hospital-admitting privileges requirement for abortion providers; the catch-22 is that admitting privileges are routinely only extended to doctors who regularly admit a certain number of patients to the hospital, but because abortion is incredibly safe, abortion providers often cannot meet such a requirement.
The Missouri advocates are also challenging a 72-hour mandatory waiting period, which is purportedly meant to give patients time to reflect on their choices. Practically speaking, the provision does no more than to delay care and increase costs for patients attempting to access abortion by necessitating additional travel, time off work, and, often, child care.
In all, the current lawsuit targets 16 statutes that providers say now directly conflict with the state’s constitution. “There can be no doubt that the … bans, restrictions, and regulations, challenged herein, are presumptively unconstitutional because they deny, interfere with, delay, and otherwise restrict abortion access,” reads the lawsuit. “They also discriminate against pregnant Missourians who choose abortion and penalize and discriminate against abortion providers who assist Missourians exercising this fundamental right.”
Notably absent from the lawsuit, however, are at least two additional onerous restrictions: a ban on Medicaid funding for abortion and a statute that requires parental notification for minors seeking care. “We are moving as swiftly as possible to restart abortion services here in Missouri when Amendment 3 takes effect,” Muniz explained during the press conference.
The lawsuit seeks to prevent the “most immediate and direct barriers on abortion access for both our patients and our providers.” However, it is emphasized that this is just the first step towards fully implementing the protections of Amendment 3, and more steps will be necessary in the future.
Despite this legal action, some of the state’s most vulnerable patients will continue to face likely unconstitutional mandates due to the failure to challenge certain restrictions deemed less pressing.
Stephanie Kraft Sheley, a lawyer and the project director of Right By You, a resource for young Missourians seeking reproductive health care, questions how the decision was made to prioritize certain barriers over others. She highlights financial barriers as a significant issue for many individuals, with the inability to afford care being a common reason for seeking assistance.
For teenagers, autonomy restrictions and laws preventing others from helping them access care are immediate barriers that need to be addressed urgently. These obstacles are particularly impactful for young individuals seeking abortion care.
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