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Today, Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri—the last remaining abortion clinic in the state of Missouri—announced that absent court intervention it will be forced to stop providing abortion care this week.
Unless the court steps in, Missouri will become the 1st state in the United States without a clinic that provides abortions health center that provides abortions. 5 other states—Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, &West Virginia—only have one abortion clinic left.
As what is happening in Missouri shows, politicians don’t have to outlaw abortion or overturn Roe to push it out of reach entirely.
Since 2011, states have passed more than 400 restrictions designed to block people from obtaining abortions and shut down abortion clinics across the country. These laws harass, criminalize and intimidate providers out of offering abortion care.
When abortion care is unavailable, the harm falls hardest on those struggling financially or those who already face significant barriers to health care.
Also today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a mixed ruling on two Indiana abortion restrictions, which were challenged by ACLU and Planned Parenthood.
1st restriction would have made it a crime to provide an abortion if the woman decided to end the pregnancy because of a fetal diagnosis, or based on the sex, race, national origin, or ancestry of the fetus.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the ban was unconstitutional and today the Supreme Court declined to review that ruling.
The second restriction requires embryonic and fetal tissue from an abortion or miscarriage to be buried or cremated. The Seventh Circuit also held that law unconstitutional, but today in a limited ruling the Supreme Court reversed that decision.
The latest Gallup poll from October 2018 shows that 2/3 of the public does not want Roe v. Wade overturned. The public supports access to safe, supportive, respectful abortion care.
