Missouri bill would allow lawsuits against those who help women obtain abortions out of state
A Missouri lawmaker wants to stop residents from obtaining abortions outside the state by allowing lawsuits to be filed against anyone who helps them.
Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican, has proposed a measure that would make performing an abortion on a Missouri resident — or helping a Missouri resident get one — illegal.
Like a similar law in Texas, the prohibitions could only be enforced through lawsuits filed by citizens. State government would have no enforcement authority. The U.S. Supreme Court has, for now, allowed the Texas law to remain in effect while courts consider challenges to it.
But Coleman’s measure goes further by asserting authority over what happens outside of Missouri.
“If your neighboring state doesn’t have pro-life protections, it minimizes the ability to protect the unborn in your state,” Coleman told The Washington Post, which reported on her proposal earlier Tuesday.
Missouri has ended most surgical abortions in the state through stringent regulations. The state has only one clinic, in St. Louis, that provides surgical abortions. A number of women travel to Kansas or Illinois instead.
Missouri law already includes a ban on abortion after eight weeks, but the state cannot enforce it while a legal challenge to the restriction makes its way through federal court. The ban, if it ever goes into effect, would be among the toughest abortion limits in the nation.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a major abortion rights ruling this spring that could significantly weaken or even overturn the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal nationwide. That outcome would give state lawmakers in Missouri and elsewhere a freer hand to restrict or potentially outright ban the procedure in the years to come.
Olivia Cappello, the press officer for state media campaigns at Planned Parenthood, told The Post the idea is “wild” and “bonkers.”
Coleman has offered her measure as an amendment to an abortion-related House bill that has not yet been debated on the floor.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 7:12 PM.
