Missouri legislators file separate bills to fully ban abortion, criminalize procedure
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (News-Press NOW) -- A pair of Missouri legislators are seeking to nullify abortion rights that were enshrined in the state constitution by voters in 2024, going as far as proposing criminal penalties for those involved in the procedure.
Missouri State Sen. Mike Moon (R-29) and Missouri State Rep. Burt Whaley (R-138) announced the filing Monday of separate bills, called the Missouri Prenatal Equal Protection Act, designed to completely abolish abortion in the state.
The legislation would recognize the abortion amendment passed by voters in 2024 as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making it a criminal offense of murder for those engaged in the procedure.
Abortions would only be legal in situations where the procedure is needed to avert the death of a pregnant woman and once all reasonable alternatives to save the life of the unborn have been ruled out or attempted beforehand, making it one of the most strict anti-abortion proposals in the country.
Despite the passage of Amendment 3 in November 2024 by Missouri voters to enshrine abortion rights into the Missouri Constitution -- a measure that passed with 52% approval -- access to the procedure remains limited while court cases unfold to decide the constitutionality of a wide range of targeted abortion restrictions.
Such laws are used to make it harder to provide or access abortion, even where the procedure is otherwise legal.
As a result, in-clinic abortions are currently available at three Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri, while medication abortion is completely unavailable, according to state media reports.
Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are currently pursuing a separate challenge to allow the use of abortion medications such as Mifepristone and Misoprostol.
A high-profile trial over the constitutionality of Missouri’s targeted abortion restrictions is scheduled to begin in January 2026, settling which of Missouri’s abortion regulations will be upheld and which are unconstitutional. A decision one way or another will likely end up before the Missouri Supreme Court.
At the same time, the Republican-controlled legislature has placed a new constitutional amendment for voters to consider in November 2026 that would reverse the results of the 2024 abortion amendment and criminalize abortion in all but a handful of circumstances.
