On May 9th, Governor Parson signed Republican State Representative Cody Smith’s HB2634, which will defund essential healthcare clinics that provide access to “contraceptive care, STI testing, cancer screenings and wellness checks,” among other health services. This is despite the fact that Missouri already has a near-total abortion ban, including with no exceptions for rape or incest. This bill passed with every Republican state legislator voting in favor, including state Senator and Republican candidate for governor Bill Eigel. Zero Democrats supported this bill.

Missouri Republicans have consistently doubled- down on their war against reproductive and family planning freedom this legislative session, voting against allowing abortion exceptions in cases of rape or incest and against protecting contraceptives and IVF services. Instead of working to improve access to quality, affordable healthcare, Republicans in the state legislature have been working relentlessly to attack our rights and gut access to basic care.

“This bill is just another harsh attack on reproductive freedom deployed by the Missouri Republican Party, despite watching voters across the country repeatedly reject this extreme government overreach at the ballot box. Missouri has one of the most extreme abortion bans on the books, and Missouri Republicans want to go further,” said Missouri Democratic Party Chair Russ Carnahan. “Extremist politicians in Jefferson City know that voters across the political spectrum want the government to stay out of their personal healthcare decisions, which is why they aren’t stopping at our right to plan our families privately and are coming for our ability to check their power at the ballot box through the initiative petition process.”

Background: 

Earlier this year, while debating amendments to add exceptions for rape and incest to Missouri’s current near-total ban, Sen. Eigel claimed he was opposed because “a 1-year-old could get an abortion under this.” Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Lieutenant Gov. Mike Kehoe also both oppose exceptions for rape and incest.

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 1,327,155 Missourians were enrolled in Medicaid as of December 2023. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 8.4 percent of Missourians, 11 percent of Missouri women, did not have health insurance coverage in 2022.

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri reported serving over 25,000 Missourians at over 40,000 patient visits to access STI screenings (39,754 screenings), birth control and family planning services (14,007 Birth Control dispensed or prescribed), and nearly 3,000 cancer screenings between July 2021 and June 2022. Nearly 20 percent of Planned Parenthood’s patients receive Medicaid. Planned Parenthood does not currently provide abortion services at any clinic in the state of Missouri.

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ 2024 Report, Missouri’s pregnancy-related death rate for Missouri mothers from 2018-2020 was 32 deaths per 100,000 live births, a significant increase from 25.2 per 100,000 as reported in the previous multi-year report for 2017-2019. Pregnancy-related death rates among Black mothers were three times higher than for white mothers.