There’s a reason Missouri only has one abortion clinic, the Planned Parenthood in the Central West End. State law says clinics and doctors here have to follow prohibitively strict rules, such as requiring abortion providers to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
Just last year, that rule about hospital privileges forced a Missouri abortion clinic to close. Republican legislators pressured the University of Missouri to strip hospital privileges from the only abortion provider in Columbia, forcing Planned Parenthood to stop providing abortion services there.
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Missouri isn’t alone in its approach to regulating abortion clinics. A recent analysis shows Texas, along with Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, share with Missouri the distinction of having the strictest state requirements in the U.S., down to a rule governing the width of the hallways in clinics. (Missouri also has comparatively strict rules for women seeking abortions, including a 72-hour waiting period.)
So when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-3 against Texas’ strict abortion regulations Monday, Missourians watched closely, looking for clues about how the high court’s decision could impact access here in the Show-Me State.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt said Texas’ regulations on abortion doctors and clinics were both medically unnecessary and unconstitutional, placing what Justice Stephen Breyer called in his majority opinion “an ‘undue burden’” on women. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined Breyer.
“Neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes,” Breyer wrote.
Only Texas’ abortion laws are directly affected by the ruling, but advocacy and legal groups in Missouri quickly felt the shockwaves. The Supreme Court’s decision guarantees a fresh round of courtroom battles between abortion advocates and opponents, possibly starting over the closing of the Columbia clinic last year.
“In Missouri, it will take costly litigation to strike down provisions, even those that are clearly unconstitutional,” Tony Rothert, legal director for the ACLU of Missouri, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Attorney General Chris Koster’s office tells the Post-Dispatch he’s reviewing the Texas case to see how it impacts Missouri. Planned Parenthood and local anti-abortion groups have pledged to continue their fight in court.
Contact Lindsay Toler by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
