Missouri OKs ban on abortions after eight weeks

Supporters: Measure designed to thwart challenges in court

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Republican-led House on Friday passed sweeping legislation designed to survive court challenges, which would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy.

If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It includes exceptions for medical emergencies but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Doctors would face five to 15 years in prison for violating the eight-week cutoff. Women who receive abortions wouldn’t be prosecuted.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson has pledged to sign the bill.

The Missouri legislation comes after Alabama’s governor signed a bill Wednesday making performing an abortion a felony in nearly all cases.

Supporters say the Alabama bill is meant to conflict with the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally as it aims to spark a court case that might prompt the current panel of more conservative justices to revisit abortion rights.

Missouri Republicans are taking a different approach.

GOP Rep. Nick Schroer said his legislation is “made to withstand judicial challenges and not cause them.”

Center for Reproductive Rights CEO Nancy Northup called the measure “unconstitutional.”

“Almost 50 years of core protections for women’s reproductive decision-making have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court,” she said in a statement. “Missouri and Alabama’s recent criminal abortion bans and all other affronts to Roe v. Wade, will be challenged and blocked according to precedent and settled law.”

Missouri’s bill also includes an outright ban on abortions except in cases of medical emergencies. But unlike Alabama’s, it would kick in only if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

If courts don’t allow Missouri’s proposed eight-week ban to take effect, the bill includes a ladder of less-restrictive time limits that would prohibit abortions at 14, 18 or 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Democratic Sen. Jill Schupp said she believes the eight-week ban goes against Roe v. Wade, under which justices noted that viability typically was 24 to 28 weeks. But she said parts of the wide-ranging bill likely will survive.

“I do believe that there are probably some provisions that will pass court challenges,” Schupp said.

Rep. Shamed Dogan was the only Republican to vote against the bill. He cited the lack of exceptions for pregnancies borne of rape and incest and said most residents of his suburban St. Louis district “think that’s going too far.”

One Democrat voted in favor.

A total of 3,903 abortions occurred in Missouri in 2017, the last full year for which the state Department of Health and Senior Services has statistics online. Of those, 1,673 occurred at under nine weeks and 119 occurred at 20 weeks or later in a pregnancy.

About 2,900 abortions occurred in 2018, according to the agency.

The bill also bans abortions based solely on race, sex or a diagnosis indicating the potential for Down syndrome.

Most provisions of the bill would take effect Aug. 28.