A Missouri abortion-rights campaign announced Thursday that it’s throwing support behind an amendment that would enshrine access to the procedure in the state constitution while allowing restrictions in later stages of pregnancy.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said it is committing to a proposal, one of 11 versions, that would let lawmakers regulate or ban abortion after what’s called viability, with an exception for the protection of the life and physical and mental health of the woman.
Supporters include the ACLU of Missouri, local Planned Parenthood affiliates and Abortion Action Missouri.
“Missouri’s cruel and restrictive ban on abortion is tying the hands of doctors and preventing necessary care,” said Dr. Iman Alsaden, an adviser to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, in a statement. “Today, Missourians are taking a critical step to make their own medical decisions and kick politicians out of the exam room.”
The question isn’t so much whether they allow an exception, and more who the the law allows to determine if the exception applies.
Ohio’s recent amendment leaves it with the mother’s regular doctor:
However, abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.
Contrast with Texas laws, where that determination is subject to judicial review, and the physician can be convicted of a felony if they can’t prove the mother was sufficiently endangered.
Ohio’s late-term exception is a legitimate exception. Texas’s “exception” is non-existent.
