Advocates call out Gov. Parson’s wrong priorities and failure to lead

Missouri advocates denounced Gov. Mike Parson’s campaign to seek a full four-year term. At a Parson campaign kickoff event, Missourians chanted “Shame on Parson!” and held banners highlighting the failures and dangerous priorities of the governor’s short tenure. 

In the 15 months since taking office after the resignation of disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens, Parson has utterly failed Missourians. He does not deserve to win re-election. Some lowlights of Gov. Parson’s short tenure include:

• Signing an extreme and dangerous bill that bans abortion after eight weeks without an exception for survivors of rape or incest

• Purging 120,000 Missourians, including more than 100,000 children, from Medicaid. This has left them without access to the health care they need while forcing families to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles while attempting to regain coverage they never should have lost

• Calling a special session to give tax breaks on used car sales that impact a few thousand people while refusing to address gun violence — even after more than a dozen St. Louis children were killed in their neighborhoods this summer 

• Failing to stem a statewide outbreak of syphilis, instead doubling-down on efforts to “defund” Planned Parenthood and block patients from receiving STI testing and treatment at Planned Parenthood health centers

• Ignoring the state’s rising infant and maternal mortality rates, especially among Black women and babies 

• Weaponizing the state health department to block the last remaining licensed abortion center from providing care in Missouri.

“Mike Parson is running for Governor and asking for our vote, but he’s not giving us much of a reason to support him. He signed off on an abortion ban that most Missourians don’t support and not allowing the public to do anything about it. He turns a blind eye to the African American children being shot in their own neighborhoods, their own yards. He won’t answer to the thousands of children being kicked off of Medicaid. Parson doesn’t deserve an office serving people he doesn’t care enough to protect. Shame on Gov. Parson, Missourians deserve better,” said Emily Wilson of Springfield, MO.

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Paid for by Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, Yamelsie Rodriguez, President and CEO, 4251 Forest Park Ave, St. Louis, MO 63108