Lawmakers and anti-abortion activists gathered at Planned Parenthood clinics around the state just days after abortion services returned to Missouri
BY: ANNA SPOERRE
Missouri Independent
Fifty years of anti-abortion laws in Missouri have been struck down as unconstitutional over the last two months, culminating Friday with a Jackson County judge blocking clinic licensing requirements.
Three days later, Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion activists gathered outside Planned Parenthood locations across the state to say they have no intention of retreating.
“I’m here to tell you the Missouri supermajority of Republicans will not stand for this,” said state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican and one of the architects of the legislation that made Missouri the first state to outlaw abortion in June 2022 after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“There will be another option to vote,” she predicted Monday, “so that people understand this is not going to continue in the state of Missouri.”
Coleman said Attorney General Andrew Bailey is expected to appeal Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang’s decision, though none was filed as of Monday afternoon. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In the meantime, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas City on Saturday performed the first elective abortion since voters overturned Missouri’s abortion ban by passing Amendment 3 in November.
Missouri Republicans have filed three dozen bills seeking to either repeal or rein in Amendment 3. So far, the House has prioritized a proposed constitutional amendment that would reinstate an abortion ban but create exceptions for survivors of rape and incest, as long as they report the crime to police.
Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster any effort to overturn the voter-approved amendment legalizing abortion.
In addition to GOP lawmakers seeking to put abortion back on the statewide ballot, Coleman said a group of attorneys is separately working on a citizen-led initiative petition “in case the legislature doesn’t get that through.”
Zhang’s Friday ruling blocked the state’s licensing requirement for abortion clinics that providers said had prevented them from restoring access to the procedure following Amendment 3’s passage.
Zhang called the licensing requirement “discriminatory” because “it does not treat services provided in abortion facilities the same as other types of similarly situated health care, including miscarriage care.”
During a hearing last month, Zhang asked Planned Parenthood’s attorneys how clinics would be regulated if the licensing requirements in place through the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
Eleanor Spottswood, an attorney with Planned Parenthood, said that like other outpatient practices, the facility would not require a license, but the providers would need to meet their own professional licensing requirements through the Missouri Board of Healing Arts.
Republicans and anti-abortion advocates argued Monday that the license requirements — along with a spate of other regulations Zhang previously blocked in response to Amendment 3 — ensured the safety of women and babies.
“We are going to spend every second and every dollar and every resource to make sure that Missourians understand what is happening,” Coleman said. “There are no health and safety regulations.”
On Monday afternoon, three people held signs vigil outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas City where two days earlier a patient underwent a surgical abortion — the first performed in Missouri since 2022.
“It’s a sad day today because abortion has resumed in Missouri,” said the Rev. James V. Johnston Jr., bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, as he stood outside in sub-freezing temperatures, wearing a March for Life stocking cap. “My hope is that our lawmakers will see this as a matter of justice.”
Several yards down the sidewalk, two clinic escorts bundled in thick layers beneath their bright vests stood at the entrance to the parking lot. They held colorful umbrellas, offered to patients as a way to cover their faces and their identities from any passers-by.
A similar scene played out 245 miles to the east at the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis’ Central West End.
“This is the real agenda of Planned Parenthood, to put the destruction of human life over the safety and well being of women,” Brian Westbrook, executive director of Coalition Life, told reporters as about half a dozen anti-abortion protesters stood behind him. “They are not fighting for women. They are fighting to remove every possible check on their harmful, deadly Business.”
Westbrook said Monday kicked off a 6-day “intense prayer and fasting vigil” outside the St. Louis clinic. Coalition Life also restarted its sidewalk counseling efforts, partnering with Women’s Care Connect, a pregnancy resource center in Maryland Heights that he said also provides “abortion pill reversal.”
Neither surgical nor medication abortions have begun again at the St. Louis location, Nick Dunne, with Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said Monday.
“This,” Coleman said, “Is not a fight that ends ever.”