Abortion In Missouri

Abortion in Missouri is illegal except in cases of medical emergency. In 2014, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Missouri adults said that abortion should be legal vs. 46% that believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. According to a 2014 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) study, 51% of white women in the state believed that abortion is legal in all or most cases.

Abortion in Missouri was legalized after the ''Roe v. Wade'' decision in 1973. Peaking at 29 abortion clinics in 1982, the number began to decline, going from twelve in 1992 to one in 2014, down to zero for a time in 2016, but back to one from 2017 to May 2019 when the last remaining clinic announced it would likely lose its license. However, the clinic remained open as of 2020.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2017, there were 4,710 abortions in Missouri. There was an eight percent decline in the abortion rate in Missouri between 2014 and 2017, from 4.4 to 4.0 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Abortions in Missouri represent 0.5 percent of all abortions in the United States.

In 2017, about 33 percent of abortions were medication abortions.

The state saw anti-abortion rights violence in 2000 in Marion County.

On 24 June 2022, following the United States Supreme Court's ruling in ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'', Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt signed a proclamation bringing into effect the state's "trigger law", banning all non-medically necessary abortions.

Abortion is decriminalized in the cities of Kansas City and St. Louis.

Terminology

The abortion debate most commonly relates to the " induced abortion" of a pregnancy, which is also how the term is used in a legal sense.According to the Supreme Court's decision in ''Roe v. Wade'':

(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgement of the pregnant woman's attending physician. (b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health. (c) For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgement, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Likewise, ''Black's Law Dictionary'' defines abortion as "knowing destruction" or "intentional expulsion or removal". Some also use the word "elective abortion", which is used concerning a claim to an unrestricted right of a woman to an abortion, whether or not she chooses to have one. The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons.

Anti-abortion advocates tend to use terms such as "unborn baby", "unborn child", or "pre-born child", and see the medical terms "embryo", "zygote", and "fetus" as dehumanizing. Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light. "Pro-choice" implies that the alternative viewpoint is "anti-choice", while "pro-life" implies the alternative viewpoint is "pro-death" or "anti-life". The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".

Context

According to a 2017 report from the Center for Reproductive Rights and Ibis Reproductive Health, states that tried to pass additional constraints on a women's ability to access legal abortions had fewer policies supporting women's health, maternal health and, children's health.  These states also tended to resist expanding Medicaid, family leave, medical leave, and sex education in public schools. In 2017, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have among the highest rates of infant mortality in the United States. In 2017, Missouri had an infant mortality rate of 6.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was rejected by Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Missouri.  Consequently, poor women in the typical age range to become mothers had a gap in coverage for prenatal care. According to Georgetown University Center for Children and Families research professor Adam Searing, "The uninsured rate for women of childbearing age is nearly twice as high in states that have not expanded Medicaid. That means many more women don't have health coverage before getting pregnant or after having their children. If states expanded Medicaid coverage, they would improve the health of mothers and babies and save lives." According to the 2018 Premature Birth Report Cards, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were all given an F. According to the 2018 America's Health Rankings produced by United Health Foundation, Missouri ranked 42nd among US states for maternal mortality.

History

Legislative history

By the end of the 1800s, all states in the Union except Louisiana had therapeutic exceptions in their legislative bans on abortions. In the 19th century, bans by state legislatures on abortion were about protecting the life of the mother given the number of deaths caused by abortions; state governments saw themselves as looking out for the lives of their citizens.

Missouri passed a parental consent law in the early 1990s. This law impacted when minors sought abortions, resulting in an increase of 19% to 22% for abortions sought after 12 weeks. The state was one of 10 states in 2007 to have a customary informed consent provision for abortions.

In 2015, the state was one of five where the legislature introduced a bill that would have banned abortion in almost all cases.  It did not pass. They tried and failed again in 2017 and 2018. The 2018 bill was introduced in the legislature to ban abortion after 15 weeks. Around 2016, the state legislature passed a law that said facilities providing abortions needed to be licensed ambulatory surgical centers and to have hospital admitting privileges. The state legislature was one of eight states nationwide that tried and failed to pass a fetal heartbeat bill in 2017. They tried and failed again in 2018.

Nationally, 2019 was one of the most active years for state legislatures to try to pass abortion rights restrictions. These state governments generally saw this as a positive sign that new moves to restrict abortion rights would less likely face resistance by the courts. In mid-2019, the state legislature passed a law that would make abortion illegal in almost all cases after eight weeks. The state was one of several states that passed such laws in May 2019 - others were Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama. The law was a "fetal heartbeat" bill.

Two fetal heartbeat bills were filed in Missouri on January 9, 2019. SB 139 was filed in the Missouri Senate by Sen. Andrew Koenig; the bill is pending in the Health and Pensions Committee. HB 126 was filed in the Missouri House of Representatives by Rep. Nick Schroer. On January 30, 2019, HB 126 was referred to the Children and Families Committee, and on February 12, 2019, a public hearing on the bill was completed. On February 21, 2018, HB 126 was voted out of committee to the full House with the recommendation that it "do pass". On February 27, 2019, HB 126 was passed out of the Missouri House and was sent to the state Senate. Missouri's House Speaker Elijah Haahr has said he supports the "heartbeat bill" calling it a top priority for the 2019 session. When asked if he would sign a fetal heartbeat bill,