Planned Parenthood Sues Missouri to Invalidate Abortion Measures

Planned Parenthood’s Missouri affiliates sued the state and various officials Wednesday to stop enforcement of various medically unnecessary restrictions that burden the ability to get an abortion in the state.

The group’s complaint came after Missourians voted on Tuesday to amend the state’s constitution to add a right to reproductive freedom. The amendment, which takes effect Dec. 5, “returns reproductive health care decisions back to where they belong: with individuals and their trusted health care providers, not Missouri politicians,” Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers—Missouri said in their complaint.

Despite an election in which voters in multiple states adopted ballot measures affirming abortion rights protections, the issue could remain unsettled for months. Advocates are contemplating litigation targeting reproductive health laws and regulations throughout the US, including parental consent statutes, Medicaid funding restrictions, and other limits that they say conflict with the measures.

Missouri’s newly adopted constitutional amendment states that any “denial, interference, delay, or restriction of the right to reproductive freedom shall be presumed invalid.” That presumption “plainly applies” to the many, overlapping bans and restrictions put in place to make “abortion as difficult as possible,” the groups said in their complaint in the Missouri Circuit Court for Jackson County.

The state has no compelling interest in maintaining provisions that unduly delay now-legal abortions because such delays are detrimental to patients’ health, the groups said.

The Planned Parenthood plaintiffs asked the court to declare the various provisions unconstitutional and block their enforcement. Without this relief, patients “will be unable to exercise their constitutionally protected right to reproductive freedom,” and the plaintiffs, providers, and staff will be unable to provide constitutionally protected care, they said.

According to the plaintiffs, Missouri was the first state to criminalize abortion altogether following the US Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which held that the US Constitution doesn’t protect a right to abortion. Even before then, the state’s myriad laws and regulations made it almost impossible to get an abortion there, they said.

The provisions the new lawsuit challenges include: those that require patients to have medically unnecessary, invasive vaginal exams; listen to state-mandated, biased information about abortion; and wait at least 72 hours between an informational appointment and a surgical appointment, the Planned Parenthood plaintiffs said. They also include licensing and provider mandates that have made it difficult for patients to access abortion, the groups said.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Planned Parenthood has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Law is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.

The ACLU of Missouri Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the ACLU Foundation, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers—Missouri represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains v. State of Mo., Mo. Cir. Ct., docket number unavailable, complaint filed 11/6/24.