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A judge says Missouri's abortion ban isn’t enforceable, but there's no start date for abortions

[December 21, 2024] By DAVID A. LIEB

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge ruled Friday that Missouri’s near-total abortion ban is unenforceable under a new constitutional amendment, though Planned Parenthood said the decision is still not sufficient for it to resume providing abortions in the state.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang said the abortion ban “is directly at odds” with a constitutional amendment creating a right to abortion that won voter approval in the November election. The judge also blocked the state from enforcing numerous other abortion restrictions, including a 72-hour waiting period and an informed consent law that required patients to be given certain state-mandated information before receiving an abortion.

But the judge declined to block several other contested abortion laws, including one requiring abortion facilities to be licensed by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Planned Parenthood said most of its facilities cannot comply with some of the licensing requirements, including “medically irrelevant” size requirements for hallways, rooms and doors.

“While Planned Parenthood stands ready to start providing abortions in Missouri again as soon as the Court permits, the abortion restrictions remaining in effect — including Missouri’s medically unnecessary and discriminatory clinic licensing requirement – make this impossible,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement Friday night.

Missouri is one of five states where voters approved ballot measures in the 2024 general election to add the right to an abortion to their state constitutions. The Missouri amendment did not specifically override any laws. Instead, advocates had to ask a court to knock down specific laws that they believe are now unconstitutional.

Zhang’s injunction is preliminary, but it signals that the judge is likely to ultimately find the abortion ban unconstitutional as the lawsuit plays out.

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Missouri had been among the first states to implement a prohibition on most abortions after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent establishing a nationwide right to abortion.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey's office did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday. Bailey, a Republican and abortion opponent, previously issued an opinion agreeing that most abortions would be legal when the amendment took effect.

But Bailey’s office is still fighting for a ban on most abortions after viability, along with a number of regulations that Planned Parenthood argues made it nearly impossible to offer abortions in the state even before abortion was almost completely banned in 2022.

Zhang declined to block several contested Missouri abortion laws, including the licensure law, another limiting only physicians to performing abortions and still another requiring in-person appointments before abortions.

Among the laws blocked by Friday's order was one prohibiting abortions solely because of a diagnosis indicating Down Syndrome. Also blocked was a telemedicine ban that requires a physician to be physically present in the room while a patient takes an abortion-causing medication. And the judge barred enforcement of another law 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 performed.

Missouri’s constitutional amendment allows lawmakers to restrict abortion after viability, with exceptions to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

The term “viability” is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say it is sometime after the 21st week of pregnancy.

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