The assault on women’s reproductive rights in state legislatures across the country has ramped up since the Supreme Court signaled in December that it might uphold a Mississippi ban on abortion at 15 weeks of gestation and dismantle the landmark ruling in Roe vs. Wade that protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
Last week the Florida Legislature passed a 15-week ban, which Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign. After the court let stand a diabolical law that deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion in Texas starting at six weeks of pregnancy, more than 10 states introduced copycat laws. One of those states is Oklahoma, which has been a refuge for nearby Texas women seeking an abortion after six weeks — a limit that defies the standard set by Supreme Court rulings legalizing abortion up to the point of viability of the fetus outside the uterus.
But no legislation tests constitutional and legal limits like an amendment — stuck into a Missouri House of Representatives bill on prescription drug pricing — that would make it a crime to help a Missouri woman get an abortion outside the state at any point in her pregnancy (unless her life is endangered by continuing the pregnancy.) Mimicking the Texas law, the measure would be enforced through lawsuits brought by private citizens, not state officials.
