By:Anna Spoerre
Missouri Independent
The “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” remains Missouri Republicans’ signature piece of abortion legislation this year as they work to fast-track it to passage before the legislative session ends next week.
A state Senate bill passed late Wednesday was modified to remove provisions allowing lawsuits over medication abortions. It has received pushback from some members on both sides of the aisle, but the House sponsor of similar legislation said he’s ready to move it quickly to the House floor for debate.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Cape Fair Republican, states that anyone who “knowingly performs or attempts to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive” can be charged with first-degree murder. Under the bill, health care providers could face the death penalty if they don’t provide life-saving care to a baby born after an attempted abortion.
House Majority Leader Alex Riley, a Springfield Republican, said the House will hold a technical session Friday in order to more quickly get hearings on Senate bills received from the upper chamber this week. That means Hudson’s bill could be heard as soon as Monday.
The House version of the bill, filed by Republican state Reps. Brian Seitz, of Branson, and Holly Jones, of Eureka, was the first anti-abortion proposal to clear a legislative chamber in Missouri this year.
Seitz on Thursday morning said he supports the bill passed by the Senate, even if some of the abortion language was pared down. In recent years, Missouri Republicans tended to take an “all or nothing” approach to abortion legislation, he added, perhaps to their detriment.
“The quote applies, ‘you can’t eat the elephant in one bite,’” Seitz said. “ … This legislation is not an all or nothing bill. It deals with incrementalism, but it does in the main what we wanted it to do. It protects the infant after birth. I think that’s very clear. And to say otherwise, is disingenuous at best.”
This legislation, supporters say, is a safeguard in the exceedingly rare instance that a baby is born during a failed abortion. They say the protections of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 don’t go far enough.
The Missouri Constitution protects the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability, which is the point in pregnancy at which the baby can survive without extraordinary medical interventions.
Before the bill got initial Senate approval Tuesday, Democrats spent about four hours stalling a vote until they reached a compromise that added a handful of provisions, including broadening the scope of the state’s Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review Board and creating criminal provisions around cyberstalking.
But perhaps most significantly, the changes eliminated language introducing civil liabilities for anyone involved with unlawfully ending a pregnancy, including through “self-induced abortions.”
Abortion rights advocates said that provision could’ve had a chilling effect on medication abortion access, especially if Missouri voters were to reinstate an abortion ban later this year.
State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, told the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee on Wednesday afternoon that “the heart of the bill was gutted.”
Several hours later, as the full Senate debated the bill, Coleman raised concern that the bill embraced multiple subjects and therefore could attract litigation because those provisions are not severable.
The Constitution requires that bills address a single subject “clearly expressed in its title.”
“I think this is a bill that’s going to waste resources in the attorney general’s office and is going to distract from the pro-life work that needs to be done in order to make people feel better about voting in favor of a pro-life bill this year,” she said on the Senate floor. “I don’t think performance is what we should be doing. I think we should be making laws, and so therefore I’m regretfully voting no.”
She was joined by Republican State Sens. Mike Moon, of Ash Grove, Joe Nicola, of Grain Valley, and Ben Brown, of Washington, in voting against the bill. All 10 Senate Democrats also voted in opposition; 18 Republicans voted in favor.
Seitz said he expects the Senate bill to pass quickly and unchanged through the House. If no changes are made, a House vote would send the bill to the governor’s desk.
Democrats, abortion-rights advocates and medical professionals say the “born-alive” language might impact doctors and patients navigating complex pregnancies. These fears extended to families who choose to induce early labor following a fatal fetal diagnosis — a procedure which falls under the definition of abortion in the medical field — especially if hospitals determined this law required any infant be resuscitated.
Sponsors of the “born-alive” legislation have said their intention is that palliative care wouldn’t be affected.
Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, characterized the bill as a Hail Mary attempt to pass any abortion legislation.
“No matter how blatantly unconstitutional and medically nonsensical a policy is, somebody’s wealthy donors were desperate for a ‘win,’” Schwarz said in a statement Thursday. “SB 999 is just another drop in the bucket of the long-term strategy to ban and criminalize all abortion care.”
