Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey took advantage of a recently enacted law to appeal a temporary freeze of numerous abortion restrictions.
After the passage of a constitutional amendment legalizing abortion, Missouri’s Planned Parenthood affiliates sued to eliminate a number of laws restricting abortion. Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang halted a number of them in December, including the state’s near-total ban on abortion and a 72-hour waiting period. In February, Zhang froze licensing requirements for abortion clinics — which prompted Planned Parenthood affiliates to offer access to abortion for the first time in years.
But Bailey appealed Zhang’s preliminary injunction against those laws to the Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday. The appeal came right after Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill that gives the attorney general the right to appeal temporary pauses against state laws or constitutional provisions.
“Yesterday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a notice of appeal challenging the Court's decision to eliminate common-sense health and safety standards,” Bailey spokeswoman Abigail Bergmann said in a statement. “The women of Missouri deserve basic standards that protect their health and lives. Attorney General Bailey is committed to defending these standards and upholding the rule of law.”
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers and Planned Parenthood Great Plains condemned Kehoe for signing the law, adding in a statement: “The same anti-abortion politicians that fought against Amendment 3 and lost at the ballot box have changed the rules of both the initiative petition and the court procedures so they can try to reinstate Missouri’s abortion ban.
“Patients deserve more access to health care, not less,” the statement from the Planned Parenthood affiliates continued. “We will fight these attacks on our fundamental rights to ensure all Missourians continue to have access to abortion and the reproductive care they need.”
In addition to giving the attorney general power to appeal some preliminary injunctions, the measure Kehoe signed into law restricts courts from rewriting ballot summary language on initiative petitions.
Whether the law remains in effect is the subject of a different lawsuit.
Sean Soenker Nicholson, who has been involved in numerous initiative petitions in Missouri, filed a lawsuit to strike down the measure. He’s contending, among other things, that the law violates the constitutional prohibitions on bills having multiple subjects.
Correction: A previous version of this story spelled the last name of Bailey's spokeswoman, Abigail Bergmann, incorrectly.
