A Missouri amendment which would make abortion a right within the state constitution has been approved, and will now appear on the ballot in November.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft certified that the petition had received the required amount of signatures, after over a year of legal wrangling. The amendment would strike down the state’s law protecting preborn children from abortion, and allow abortion for any reason through ‘viability,’ often considered to be 24 weeks gestation. However, medical advances have allowed premature babies to survive as young as 21 weeks, making the idea of “viability” meaningless. Furthermore, abortions would be permitted past ‘viability’ if it was considered necessary to protect the mother’s physical or mental health.
Missouri citizens will decide on whether to (emphasis added):
“… provide the right for reproductive freedom, which is defined as ‘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,’ and providing that the state legislature may enact laws that regulate abortion after fetal viability, which is defined in the initiative as ‘in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.'”
Note that the amendment groups abortion (intentionally ending the life of a preborn child) in the same category as prenatal care (ensuring the best possible health of a preborn child) under “reproductive health care.” It also fails to define “significant likelihood” of a preborn child’s survival and fails to define “extraordinary medical measures.” The amendment is incredibly broad, and its critics note that it will allow abortion for any reason throughout pregnancy.
Ashcroft had originally tried to have language on the ballot reflecting the reality of abortion, writing:
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:
allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice;
nullify longstanding Missouri law protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion;
require the government not to discriminate against persons providing or obtaining an abortion, potentially including tax-payer funding; and
prohibit any municipality, city, town, village, district, authority, public subdivision, or public corporation having the power to tax or regulate or the state of Missouri from regulating abortion procedures?
However, Cole County Judge Jon Beetem struck down that language, and the Missouri Supreme Court refused Ashcroft’s appeal. Beetem said phrases like “unborn child,” “partial-birth abortion,” and “end the life” were “problematic,” and had to be removed. The amendment now includes deceptive euphemisms like “reproductive freedom” and “abortion care.”
“The undeniable truth is this measure legalizes abortion throughout any stage of the pregnancy,” Stephanie Bell, spokeswoman for Missouri Stands with Women, which opposes the ballot measure, told ABC News.
Sue Liebel, Midwestern Regional Director for SBA Pro-Life America, said there are further problems with the amendment, which she said will put women at risk. “Missouri’s all-trimester abortion amendment gives the abortion industry a free pass from operating under any health and safety requirements from the state,” she said in a statement to LifeNews. “With Missouri Planned Parenthood business’ record of breaking the law, women and girls will be at risk if the state’s abortion industry goes unregulated. In the past few years, Missouri Planned Parenthood businesses were caught using moldy abortion equipment, ignoring informed consent laws, disregarding the law for 15 years to report when a woman has a complication, and allegedly being willing to traffick a 13-year-old out of state.”
