Missouri Supreme Court Reinstates Abortion Ban Despite Voters Repealing It

In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision, many states in the Deep South and Midwest wasted no time in implementing restrictive abortion bans. 

Missouri was one such state, with state legislators passing an abortion ban that effectively criminalized the practice in every circumstance save for a medical emergency. While Missouri voters rejected the abortion ban through a ballot measure last year, a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court has reinstated the abortion ban statewide. 

NBC News reports the state Supreme Court found Judge Jerri Zhang used the wrong standards in her ruling that allowed abortions to continue in the state. Zhang’s ruling stated that she was allowing abortions to continue as she believed that advocates would eventually prove successful in the case, either way. The state court ordered Zhang to vacate her prior ruling and utilize the standards they laid out in the ruling, which are centered around determining whether harm would result from allowing abortions to resume in the state. 

From NBC News: 

The state emphasized in its petition filed to the state Supreme Court in March that Planned Parenthood didn’t sufficiently prove women were harmed without the temporary blocks on the broad swath of laws and regulations on abortion services and providers. On the contrary, the state said Zhang’s decisions left abortion facilities “functionally unregulated” and women with “no guarantee of health and safety.”

Among the regulations that had been placed on hold were ones setting cleanliness standards for abortion facilities and requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at certain types of hospitals located within 30 miles (48 kilometers) or 15 minutes of where an abortion is provided.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement that “today’s decision from the Missouri Supreme Court is a win for women and children and sends a clear message — abortion providers must comply with state law regarding basic safety and sanitation requirements.”

Despite the majority of Missouri voters casting their ballots to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, that has not stopped state Republicans from doing their damndest to ignore the will of the people. The focus on “sanitary measures” seems to be less rooted in genuine concern and more a continuation of the ways state Republicans have tried to hyper-regulate abortion to make access more difficult. 

Even in the wake of the ballot measure, Republican legislators have introduced bills that would classify abortion pills as controlled substances and legislation that would treat abortion as homicide. They have even gone so far as to introduce another ballot measure that would reinstate the abortion ban with added exceptions for rape and incest. (which I’m sorry, but it’s ACTUALLY INSANE that they didn’t even have those to begin with.)  

The “pro-life” moves by state legislatures nationwide have proven to be quite fatal. The infant mortality rate rose for the first time in 20 years after Roe v. Wade was repealed, and many of these abortion bans went into place. Like everything awful in America, the abortion bans have had disproportionate effects on Black women. 

In Missouri, Black women are 2.5 times more likely than white women to suffer fatal complications related to pregnancy. It’s a similar story in Texas, which saw a 38% increase in deaths of Black mothers in the wake of the state’s abortion ban. In fact, in every state with an abortion ban, Black women are statistically more likely to suffer fatal pregnancy-related complications than any other demographic.

Numbers like those are why I can’t stand the moral grandstanding of pro-lifers, as it’s clear they’re not pro-life. They just want to exert control over a woman’s body. The politicians who talk a big game about the sanctity of life are the same ones who vote against free school lunches, stricter gun control, and expanded healthcare. The numbers show that these abortion bans have resulted in both higher infant and maternal mortality rates, yet I doubt that’s going to do anything to change the minds of the legislators who impose these bans. 

That doesn’t sound too pro-life to me. In fact, it sounds like quite the opposite. 

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