Planned Parenthood sues Missouri over eight-week abortion ban

Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit against Missouri officials challenging a recently-passed law that criminalizes abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, challenges certain — but not all — provisions of the law, which was signed by Gov. Mike Parson in May and will take effect Aug. 28.

Planned Parenthood has asked the court to block the law through a temporary restraining order or injunction until the court makes a decision.

Similar laws in Mississippi and Ohio have been temporarily stopped by federal courts. Known as “heartbeat bills,” those laws, however, are even more stringent than Missouri’s and criminalize abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected or at six weeks of pregnancy.

Missouri’s law is structured so that if an eight-week ban is found unconstitutional, a 14-week, then 18-week and, finally, a 20-week ban goes into effect. Physicians that perform abortions after the stated gestational period could face five to 15 years in prison.

The lawsuit claims all four bans based on gestational age, as well the ban based on reasons such as race, sex or a Down’s Syndrome diagnosis, are unconstitutional.

Supreme Court precedent has held that a state can’t prohibit a woman from terminating her pregnancy before viability, the lawsuit states. Since a fetus can’t survive outside of its mother’s womb at eight weeks, 14 weeks, 18 weeks or 20 weeks, the law is unconstitutional, it said.

The lawsuit names the entity that runs the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic and its chief medical officer, Colleen McNicholas, as plaintiffs.

“We are in the fight of our lives to protect abortion for 1.1 million Missouri women of reproductive age in our state,” McNicholas said in a statement. “The attacks are relentless, but our commitment to our patients’ rights and freedoms is unwavering.”

The state has tried to deny the clinic a license to offer abortions, but the move is being contested in the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission.

Along with legal representation from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, attorneys from the national and Missouri chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Kansas City law office of Arthur Benson, and New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison will work on the case.

“The impact (of the law) would be devastating for Missourians seeking abortion care, and would be felt most acutely by low-income patients and people of color,” Andrew Beck, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project senior staff attorney, said in a statement. “Politicians have no business dictating personal medical decisions, and we will not stand for it: the ACLU, along with our partners, is in this fight until these laws are blocked once and for all, and everyone who needs an abortion in Missouri can get one.”

The ACLU of Missouri is trying to reverse the law through a referendum, which has yet to be approved for circulation by the Secretary of State despite a looming deadline of Aug. 28 to collect more than 100,000 signatures to place the question on the 2020 ballot.

As defendants, the suit lists Parson, who signed the law, and Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who has the ability to prosecute abortion-related criminal offenses. Since the state’s only abortion provider is in the city of St. Louis, Planned Parenthood has also sued St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

The lawsuit also names Randall Williams, the head of the agency that regulates the abortion providers, and members of the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts, which has the ability to discipline physicians.

Schmitt, whose office will represent the state, did not return a request for comment.

This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 8:11 PM.