As Live Action News recently reported, Missouri’s pro-life Republican governor, Eric Greitens, called a special legislative session last week. In a late-night Wednesday session, the Missouri Senate passed legislation which will enable the state’s attorney general to enforce safety regulations which abortion facilities are required to meet.
The Kansas City Star reported:
One piece of the legislation would allow the attorney general to prosecute violations of abortion laws.
Currently, only local prosecutors have jurisdiction in these matters, but anti-abortion activists contend that leaves enforcement in the hands of elected prosecutors in more liberal areas of the state, such as Kansas City and St. Louis.
It is not merely a matter of being pro- or anti-abortion. The Kansas City Star and abortion advocates fail to mention that abortion safety in Missouri is sorely lacking. Presently, abortions are only performed at the Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, but the facility has, since 2009, sent one patient to the hospital every six weeks, on average. Women are clearly being harmed by abortion. The abortion movement claims over and over that abortion is safe, while dismissing the real physical and psychological effects women may suffer following their abortions.
If Planned Parenthood is able to go through on its intention to perform abortions at more locations, this should be an even greater cause for concern, and one which should demand actual accountability. It’s not only the St. Louis location which causes a danger; Live Action News has reported on various safety concerns at Planned Parenthood locations nationwide.
One would certainly hope that no one — not even an abortion advocate — would want another Kermit Gosnell to emerge. The problem is, Gosnell was able to operate in his deplorable conditions, killing preborn children as well as their mothers, precisely because the state neglected to properly inspect and/or enforce the state’s abortion laws, which Gosnell was breaking to perform gruesome late-term abortions.
St. Louis has also recently become what some are calling an “abortion sanctuary,” after the passing of an ordinance which The Kansas City Star characterizes as one that “bans employers and landlords from discriminating against women who have had an abortion, use contraceptives or are pregnant.”
But the ordinance is not quite so simple, as Live Action News’s Danny David has previously explained. “For example, the law could force landlords to rent property to abortion businesses against their beliefs, or punish employers (possibly including pro-life groups and/or religious groups) who refuse to hire abortion activists,” he wrote.
In reporting about the governor’s special session, Live Action News’s Kristi Burton Brown confirms that the law could even target crisis pregnancy centers. These life-affirming centers are important resources for abortion-vulnerable women everywhere, but in light of the lack of abortion safety, these centers are become even more necessary (emphasis added):
… Gov. Greitens also explained that these centers “can’t work the way they’re supposed to” in St. Louis, due to a law the city enacted. Known as an “abortion sanctuary city,” St. Louis is discriminating against pregnancy centers, and many in the state believe they will eventually be banned from the city. Under the abortion sanctuary law, landlords could be forced to rent their properties to abortion facilities, and employers (including pregnancy centers) who did not want to hire abortion advocates could be punished.
NARAL Pro-Choice American has come out against the legislation, but this isn’t surprising, given their incessant crusade against pregnancy centers, at the legislative and public opinion levels. Alison Dreith of the NARAL Missouri affiliate told the Kansas City Star that legislators were “cowards” for their late-night vote and that passing such restrictions “in the dark of the night is shameful, at best.” Dreith blamed Republicans, saying, “Republican senators know this, or they would have allowed the hundreds of people rallying at the Capitol on Wednesday take part in the process.”
Of course, it is the abortion industry which is the extreme side of the issue. With any hope, women and their children will see some real and immediate benefits as a result of this special session.
