More than two months after Missouri residents voted to add abortion rights into their state constitution and overturn the state’s ban on the procedure, abortions have not yet resumed in Missouri – and it’s not clear when they will, according to a key Planned Parenthood official in the region.
The day after the election, Missouri Planned Parenthood affiliates filed a lawsuit asking the court to eliminate a slew of abortion restrictions that, the affiliates said, made it impossible to perform the procedure. On Friday evening, the Jackson county circuit court judge Jerri Zhang ruled that several restrictions, including the state’s near-total ban, were “clearly contrary” to the state’s new constitutional amendment and could not be enforced.
However, Zhang left other laws in place, including a requirement that abortion clinics be licensed by the Missouri department of health and senior services. In order to obtain that license, clinics must have extra-large hallways and rooms. Planned Parenthood called those rules “medically unnecessary” in court papers and said that many of its facilities do not meet those standards.
As long as they are in place, Emily Wale, president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates in Missouri, is not sure when her clinics will be able to start performing abortions. The organization is now weighing its legal options – as it may ask Zhang to re-examine her ruling, go to a higher court seeking relief or attempt to apply for a license from the state.
“The misperception people may have now is that we could just apply and reopen our doors,” Wale said. But, she added: “It was so weaponized when we had to get licensure from the state. The state would delay. They would force us to litigate to get a license.”
Two Planned Parenthood abortion clinics had to stop providing the procedure back in 2018 – years before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 and allowed Missouri to ban almost all abortions – because the clinics could not come to licensing agreements with the Missouri state government.
Voters in seven states passed pro-abortion rights ballot measures in November, but abortion rights activists are now in the process of making those measures’ promises real. Because the measures do not automatically strike down abortion restrictions, advocates are now hoping that lawsuits or new legislation may be used to do so. In Arizona, the state’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, a Democrat, has agreed not to enforce the state’s 15-week abortion ban while litigation over Arizona’s pro-abortion rights ballot measure plays out.
Unlike Arizona, however, Missouri’s state government is dominated by Republicans. Despite voters’ support for abortion rights, state lawmakers have already filed at least 11 anti-abortion bills.
“I would have been more surprised if they hadn’t,” Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, told the Guardian ahead of Friday’s ruling. “But we have an opportunity to look forward. A big goal will be making sure people have access to accurate information, because part of what they’re doing with all of these new attacks is trying to scare people. We know that fear and confusion itself is a barrier to care.”
Zhang’s mixed ruling has already left patients confused, according to Wale. After the judge issued her decision, over the weekend, some patients called to ask for abortion appointments in Missouri, only to be told that they had to instead go to Kansas, Wale said.
