(The Epoch Times)—Missouri laws restricting abortion are unconstitutionally vague and conflict with a constitutional amendment voters in the state approved in 2024, a county judge has ruled.
Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang on June 18 ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood and other plaintiffs, finding that many of the restrictions “violate the Missouri Constitution … and may therefore not be enforced.”
That’s in part because of a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2024 that said the government “shall not deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which is the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.”
The amendment said that restrictions could be applied, but only if the government demonstrated they were “justified by a compelling governmental interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
The violations, Zhang said, include restrictions that prohibit providing medication abortion absent a plan approved by the government that involves abortion providers committing to being available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to “personally treat all complications” from the abortions.
Planned Parenthood had not been providing medication abortions, deeming the rules too onerous. It had been providing regular abortions under preliminary injunctions that had previously been entered by the courts.
The organization said on June 22 that it had resumed providing those abortions in the wake of the ruling.
“This decision brings compassion and common sense back to Missouri health care,” Emily Wales, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement.
“For too long, politicians forced patients to leave the state for an evidence-based and trusted form of abortion care. Now, that care is coming home and with it, we move closer to fulfilling the promise of reproductive freedom Missourians demanded.”
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway criticized the development.
“This radical decision gives abortion providers a free pass to police themselves,” Hanaway said in a statement.
“Women are no longer entitled to the same level of care in an abortion clinic that they would receive in other healthcare settings: providers are no longer required to maintain complication plans or insurance, and the state cannot even conduct basic health and safety inspections to ensure patient safety.”
Hanaway said she would appeal the ruling to the Missouri Supreme Court.
