‘You think you’re stopping abortions with these ridiculous bills? You’re not,’ said state Rep. Raychel Proudie
BY: ANNA SPOERRE
Missouri Independent
A proposed constitutional amendment that would ban abortion is one step closer to the statewide ballot after it won initial approval of the Missouri House on Tuesday.
After four hours of floor debate, the House passed the proposed amendment with 94 in favor and 50 against. Two Republicans — Speaker Jon Patterson and state Rep. Bill Allen — joined with 48 Democrats in opposition.
As lawmakers prepared to vote, protesters with Abortion Action Missouri began chanting from the upper chamber, unfurling banners over the balcony protesting the proposed amendment.
“When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” they shouted before security moved them into the hallway.
The legislation needs to be approved one more time by the House before it goes to the Senate.
If approved by the Senate, and then by voters, the new amendment would reinstate a near-total abortion ban in Missouri with limited exceptions for medical emergencies, fatal fetal anomalies and for survivors of rape and incest in the first 12 weeks of gestation.
It would also protect women’s access to health care during miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other medical emergencies. These protections are also in place under the current law.
In November, voters approved Amendment 3, which rolled back Missouri’s abortion ban and opened the door for clinics to begin performing the procedure for the first time since 2022.
The proposed constitutional amendment debated Tuesday was filed by Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis of Moberly and is being carried by state Rep. Brian Seitz, a Branson Republican. A previous proposed abortion ban was scrapped before making it to the full House, causing some to speculate about internal disagreements among GOP lawmakers causing roadblocks with a month left in the legislative session.
Seitz denies that there are any disagreements between GOP lawmakers, saying the current legislation before the House was the plan all along because it best matches with the language in a similar Senate proposal.
“We’re on the exact same sheet of music,” he said. “The timeline may appear long to the general public, but this is exactly the plan from the beginning.”
Seitz insists that Missourians, in approving Amendment 3 with just shy of 52% of the statewide vote, were signaling that some exceptions were needed in Missouri’s prior abortion ban.
Since abortion was legalized late last year, Missouri Republicans have made it a priority to undo or weaken the current law, forcing many lawmakers to contend with their beliefs around abortion exceptions, something many have opposed in the past.
“I make decisions from a Biblical worldview,” Seitz told The Independent last week. “I have to understand that others may not, so pragmatically, how do we, particularly we that profess Christ as savior, how do we justify even the possibility of these exceptions for rape and incest?”
His conclusion: Exceptions will still allow the GOP legislature to “save as many infants as possible and protect women.”
During a marathon House debate on Tuesday, however, Democrats dismissed that argument.
“You think you’re stopping abortions with these ridiculous bills? You’re not,” said state Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat from Ferguson. “You’re stopping safe, legal abortions. People are still going to have abortions. So if you want to be pro-life, let’s try being pro quality-of-life first.”
Proudie noted that at a House committee hearing, some lawmakers advocated murder charges for rape and incest survivors who seek out abortions.
She was among several Democrats who shared stories of constituents who weren’t allowed to testify against the bill last week when state Rep. Holly Jones, who chairs the House Committee on Children and Families, limited testimony to only nine people, despite dozens more traveling to Jefferson City to oppose the legislation.
“My vagina is not mine,” Proudie said. “It belongs to the state of Missouri.”'
If approved by both the House and Senate, Missourians could be asked to weigh in on reinstating an abortion ban as soon as a special election the governor could call this year, or during the 2026 midterm election.
The proposed ballot summary doesn’t mention banning elective abortions. Instead, Missourians would be asked if they want to amend the Missouri constitution to:
- “Guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages;
- Ensure women’s safety during abortions;
- Ensure parental consent for minors;
- Allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest;
- Require physicians to provide medically accurate information; and
- Protect children from gender transition?”
Missouri state Rep. Mark Boyko, a Democrat from Kirkwood, said that no part of the ballot language “tells a voter that there will be fewer abortions allowed.”
Previous iterations of this proposed amendment included exceptions for survivors, but only if they first reported the rape or incest to police, a requirement that was highly criticized as dangerous by survivors and advocates.
While the current version eliminated those requirements, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City, remained skeptical of how survivors would be allowed to access the procedure.
“Who is the arbiter of whether or not she was raped or a victim of incest?” asked Aune, who is herself a survivor. “The honor system?”
After the passage of Amendment 3 in November, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri sued the state, claiming that many of the TRAP laws on the books were rendered unconstitutional. A Jackson County judge agreed, striking down many of the current regulations as “discriminatory.”
This decision allowed Planned Parenthood to again begin offering some procedural abortions at three of its clinics. Medication abortions, however, remain inaccessible.
Jones said Amendment 3 was vague and “completely up to judicial interpretation” with unintended consequence.
State Rep. Cathy Jo Loy, a Republican from Carthage, pointed to language in Amendment 3 referring to a “treating health care professional.”
Could that include a dietician or a speech pathologist, Jo Loy asked.
“Absolutely,” Seitz replied.
State Rep. Jeremy Dean, a Democrat from Springfield who worked in health care for five years, including at an OBGYN office, disputed this.
“You ever heard of scope of practice? You ever heard of a licensure? A governing body?” he said. Those are all things that exist that didn’t go away when Amendment 3 passed.”
The proposed amendment also looks to require that any legal challenges to the state law around reproductive health care be heard in Cole County, a nod to the ongoing legal battle playing out between the state and Planned Parenthood in Jackson County.
Republican lawmakers on numerous occasions during Tuesday’s debate emphasized that the main goal of the amendment was to protect women.
“I ask that you stop trying to protect me or my constituents,” said state Rep. Jo Doll, a Democrat from St. Louis. “Because we can protect ourselves.”
State Rep. Becky Laubinger, a Republican from Park Hills, rejected any accusations that anti-abortion lawmakers don’t care about women.
Laubinger, who runs Monarch Family Resource Center in Ironton, said she’s gone out at all hours of the day to purchase diapers and pack n plays for families in need. She’s watched children so women could go to doctor’s appointments.
Democrats ultimately accused their GOP colleagues of attempting to undermine the will of the people.
“Sending this back to them is not a democratic exercise,” said state Rep. Eric Woods, a Democrat from Kansas City. “It’s an attempt to slap them on the wrist, tell them they were wrong and maybe they can do it better next time.”
The Independent’s Annelise Hanshaw contributed to this story.