Reproductive freedom advocates reject hearing, refuse to legitimize false propaganda dressed up as legislation

Today, the Missouri Senate Committee on Health and Pensions will conduct a hearing on two anti-abortion bills: SB 665 and SB 650. The two bills are a part of a coordinated attack from Missouri Republicans to push outlandish lies about abortion and the doctors who provide abortion.

SB 665, sponsored by Senator Eric Burlison (R-Republic) threatens doctors with criminal charges for a practice that does not exist in medicine or reality. The bill also aims to intimidate those who may consider self-managed abortion by imposing civil liability on any person who assists a person in ending a pregnancy. SB 650 sponsored by Senator Bill Eigel (R-Weldon Spring) is a deceitful attempt by anti-reproductive health legislators to politicize the Department of Health and Senior Services by instructing them to push their unpopular, extremist agenda on Missourians. 

NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri and Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri refuse to legitimize these dubious attacks on abortion access and the full scope of reproductive health care in Missouri. 

Statement from Mallory Schwarz, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri:

“Anti-abortion politicians have one goal: to ban abortion in Missouri. The legislation sponsored by Senators Eigel and Burlison is a malicious attempt to mislead, misinform, and punish people who choose abortion — and the medical providers who care for them. Their extremist agenda is unpopular with the vast majority of Missourians, so they’re using every trick in the anti-choice playbook to rile up their radical base at the expense of Missourians and their families.

“NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri will not legitimize this reckless attack on Missourians’ reproductive freedom, but neither will we forget. The reproductive freedom front will hold Senators Eigel and Burlison and their anti-choice cronies accountable for jeopardizing reproductive health care in a state already failing to address skyrocketing maternal mortality rates, a syphilis outbreak, and a Medicaid purge that left more than 120,000 people without critical health care.” 

Statement from M’Evie Mead, Director of Policy and Organizing, Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri:

“We all want families to have access to the best medical care available. As a health care provider, Planned Parenthood works every day to ensure people have access to safe, compassionate, high-quality health care and information.

This propaganda dressed up as legislation is written by politicians, not doctors. Repeating the same misinformation used to restrict access to safe and legal abortion, anti-reproductive health lawmakers are trying to criminalize doctors for a practice that doesn’t exist. This is not how medical care works, and it’s irresponsible to imply that it is.

At a time when Missouri’s maternal mortality is increasing, we must be doing everything we can to increase access to health care — not to cut it.”

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NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri is the leading grassroots pro-choice advocacy organization in Missouri, and we believe that every person who can get pregnant should be able to make personal decisions about the full range of reproductive health options. NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri works to protect the right of every person who can get pregnant to access the full range of reproductive health options, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri is the state affiliate of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri works to protect and expand sexual and reproductive rights and health for all Missourians. It is a joint project of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes and Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, the political and advocacy arms of both Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri.