Missouri Clinics Resume Abortions, Following Abortion Rights Referendum
The New York Times
Abortion opponents had tried to block, or severely limit, the procedure, against the will of voters who in November enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution.
Abortion clinics in the staunchly Republican state of Missouri this week resumed procedures for the first time in years, despite a continued push by conservative state leaders to block a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights that voters approved in November.
It was a remarkable moment after an extended fight. Missouri was the first state to enact an abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Then in 2024, it became the first state with a near-total ban to approve a citizen-sponsored abortion rights amendment.
On the day after voters approved the constitutional amendment, abortion rights groups sued to overturn the ban as well as a host of other restrictions on abortion that preceded the ban. Planned Parenthood, the only provider of abortions outside of hospitals in the state, resumed abortion procedures after a judge on Friday granted a temporary injunction that blocked state licensing requirements imposed on clinics. The clinics had said that the requirements made it impossible to operate.
Planned Parenthood still will not provide abortion pills until the state approves a required plan for reporting any complications faced by women who use them. And Republican legislators are still pressing for a raft of bills that would restrict or reverse the amendment passed in November.
The struggle to provide abortions three months after the ballot measure passed highlights the difficulties that clinics face despite popular support for abortion rights among voters.
Still, Emily Wales, the president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said that relative to other states with bans, Missouri was moving at “breakneck speed.”
