Following new decisions from Missouri’s top court in the turbulent legal battle over a restriction that voters overturned last November, Planned Parenthood suspended abortions in the state on Tuesday.
In decisions issued in December and February that permitted abortions to restart in the state, the state’s highest court determined that a district judge had applied the incorrect threshold. After the U.S. Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in 2022, a prohibition was implemented that stopped almost all abortions.
In its two-page decision on Tuesday, the court directed Judge Jerri Zhang to revoke her previous rulings and reconsider the case in light of the guidelines it established.
Zhang decided that the main reason she was permitting abortions to continue was because supporters were probably going to win the case in the end.
According to the Supreme Court, it should first decide whether permitting abortions to continue will have negative effects.
In their March petition to the state Supreme Court, the state stressed that Planned Parenthood had not provided enough evidence that women suffered harm in the absence of interim restrictions on the wide range of rules and regulations pertaining to abortion services and providers.
In contrast, the state said that Zhang’s rulings left women with “no guarantee of health and safety” and abortion facilities “functionally unregulated.”
Regulations establishing cleanliness requirements for abortion facilities and mandating that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at specific hospitals within 30 miles (48 kilometers) or 15 minutes of the abortion facility were among those that had been put on hold.
“Today’s decision from the Missouri Supreme Court is a win for women and children and sends a clear message — abortion providers must comply with state law regarding basic safety and sanitation requirements,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a statement.
According to Planned Parenthood, those limitations were put in place expressly to make it more difficult to seek an abortion.
However, Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said the organization, which operates the only abortion facilities in the state, immediately began phoning patients to cancel appointments for abortions at clinics in Columbia and Kansas City, Missouri.
According to Wales, the organization is in a familiar but disheartening position.
“We have had to call patients in Missouri previously and say you were scheduled for care, your appointment is now canceled because of political interference, new restrictions, licensure overreach by the state,” she stated. “To be in that position again, after the people of Missouri voted to ensure abortion access, is frustrating.”
According to Wales, Planned Parenthood intends to return to court shortly. Campaign Life Missouri director Sam Lee expressed his “extreme excitement” with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“This means that our pro-life laws, which include many health and safety protections for women, will remain in place,” Lee stated. “How long they will remain we will have to see.”
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Only in Missouri have voters repealed a law that forbade abortions at any point during pregnancy by a ballot initiative.
It took more than three months after the amendment was ratified for the Republican-controlled state administration to challenge the decision in court to permit abortions to resume.
Legislators have since adopted a second ballot amendment that would reinstate the ban, with certain exceptions for pregnancies brought on by incest or rape. It might appear on the ballot as early as 2026.
Twelve states had laws prohibiting abortion at all stages of pregnancy prior to Tuesday’s decision, and four more had laws that went into effect at six weeks, which is before most women are aware that they are pregnant.
