Judge considers first lawsuit to overturn Missouri's near-total abortion ban

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Abortion-rights advocates on Wednesday asked a judge to overturn Missouri's near-total ban on the procedure, less than a month after voters backed an abortion-rights constitutional amendment.

Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang did not immediately rule after the hearing. Planned Parenthood and other plaintiffs had asked her to issue a temporary order blocking enforcement of Missouri's numerous abortion laws.

Emily Wales, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said abortions could begin Friday in clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis if the judge issues the order.

''Every single day that they cannot access abortion rights they are being denied critical care," Wales said of Missouri residents.

Several anti-abortion protesters knelt on the ground as they prayed outside the courthouse during the hearing. They covered their mouths with a red piece of tape that read ''life.''

Missouri is one of five states where voters approved ballot measures this year to add the right to an abortion to their state constitutions. Nevada voters also approved an amendment, but they'll need to pass it again in 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of ''pregnancy outcomes'' prevailed in New York.

Reproductive rights advocates in Arizona on Tuesday sued to undo a 15-week abortion ban that conflicts with that state's new constitutional amendment expanding access up to fetal viability.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, an abortion opponent, last week issued an opinion agreeing that most abortions will be legal when the amendment takes effect Thursday.

But Bailey's office is still fighting for a ban on most abortions after viability, along with a number of regulations that Planned Parenthood argues made it nearly impossible to offer abortions in the state even before abortion was almost completely banned in 2022.

Missouri's constitutional amendment allows lawmakers to restrict abortion after viability, with exceptions to ''protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.''

The term ''viability'' is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Though there's no defined time frame, doctors say it is sometime after the 21st week of pregnancy.

Other abortion laws that Bailey is defending include a 72-hour waiting period before an abortion can be performed; bans on abortions based on race, sex or a possible Down syndrome diagnosis; and a requirement that medical facilities that provide abortions be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers.

''Those laws are enabling childbirth,'' he said. "They are giving time to choose childbirth.''

But Planned Parenthood Federation of America attorney Ella Spottswood during the hearing told the judge that by 2019, the slew of Missouri laws regulating abortion had effectively limited access to a single St. Louis clinic.

''The voters have changed all that,'' she said. ''The questions should begin and end with the amendment.''

It is unclear when Zhang will rule on the request for a preliminary injunction.

___