The Missouri Supreme Court has halted abortion access in the state for now, upending a constitutional amendment that voters put in place last year and delivering a “devastating” setback for patients in need of immediate abortion care, reproductive rights advocates say.
The state’s highest court ruled Tuesday that a district judge must vacate her two recent rulings issuing preliminary injunctions protecting abortion rights, which were reinstated by voters last November following a 2022 ban in the wake of the fall of Roe v. Wade.
“This latest attack by the Missouri Supreme Court is unconstitutional, unconscionable, and downright dirty politics,” Mini Timmaraju, the president of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in reacting to the ruling. “It is devastating for people across the country to know that even if they organize, vote, and pass measures to protect their reproductive care, extreme GOP actors will still try to take away our constitutional rights.”
The Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling hinges on its conclusion that District Judge Jerri Zhang used the wrong standard to make her decisions. When she determined in December that the state’s near-total abortion ban was unenforceable, then in February struck down licensing requirements and regulations for abortion clinics, calling them “unnecessary” and “discriminatory,” she concluded that abortion rights advocates were likely to prevail in their larger, ongoing battle with the state over abortion access.
