Missouri Senate passes annual abortion clinic inspections

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri senators early Thursday morning passed legislation to require new abortion restrictions, such as annual health inspections of clinics, and to overturn a St. Louis ordinance that bans discrimination based on the procedure.

The measure passed 20-8 after little debate by senators and now heads to the House, which is expected to take up the measure next week.

Sen. Wayne Wallingford, R-Cape Girardeau, said the measure has the toughest regulations on abortions he has seen passed by the Senate in years.

“It is a very good bill,” he said, adding senators combined provisions in three pieces of legislation into a single measure.

Wallingford said, however, he would have preferred the legislation require twice-a-year inspections of abortion clinics.

Missouri already has some of the nation’s toughest abortion laws, and lawmakers are weighing the legislation after Republican Gov. Eric Greitens called a special legislative session specifically on abortion.

Greitens said he called the special session, the second since lawmakers ended their annual session in May, in reaction to the St. Louis ordinance banning discrimination in employment and housing based on “reproductive health decisions” and a federal judge’s ruling that struck down some Missouri abortion restrictions passed in previous legislative sessions.

The ruling, which the state is appealing, tossed out requirements doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and clinics meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery.

Greitens wants lawmakers to enact other restrictions on clinics in place of those that were struck down.

“It’s all about protecting women’s health and safety and making sure we have a regulatory environment for this particular industry,” said Sen. Andrew Koenig, a Manchester Republican who sponsored the legislation that passed the Senate.

Also pending are applications by regional Planned Parenthood agencies to the health department seeking to get licenses to provide abortions in Columbia, Joplin, Kansas City and Springfield. Planned Parenthood now offers the procedure only in St. Louis.

Sen. Jill Schupp, D-Creve Coeur, said she’s concerned new regulations, more of which also could be created by the Department of Health and Senior Services under the legislation, might lead to barriers for those locations to start offering abortions. She described the proposals pending in the Legislature as a “broad attack on women’s reproductive rights.”

“Bills that try to make it very difficult for women to access that reproductive-health option, which is her right to do, are dangerous,” she said.

Missouri is one of only five states to require women to wait 72 hours after receiving counseling before getting an abortion, which, according to the Guttmacher Institute, is the nation’s longest waiting period.

The institute is a national organization that supports abortion rights.

Missouri also already bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, one of 17 states with that limit.

The measure under consideration would allow the state attorney general, now Republican abortion opponent Josh Hawley, authority to prosecute violations of abortion laws. But senators tempered that power, adding a stipulation the state’s top law-enforcement official can step in only if local officials don’t act.

Other provisions include time limits of five business days for abortion clinics to submit fetal tissue samples from abortions for examination by pathologists, who would get 72 hours to submit a report or 24 hours if there is not evidence an abortion was completed. Currently, there are no deadlines.

Koenig said the reports are needed to make sure abortions are completed and no tissue is left over after the procedure, which he said could pose a health risk.

Some Republican lawmakers have been trying to pass more stringent laws dealing with fetal tissue since the 2015 release of undercover videos by anti-abortion activists, who said the videos showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of tissue.

Planned Parenthood officials have said clinics in the state do not participate in fetal-tissue donation programs.

The legislation also would require the state’s health department to review fetal-tissue reports and compare them with the number of reported abortions — an effort by Republican lawmakers to ensure tissue is properly disposed of and not kept.

If discrepancies between those reports are found, the agency would have to reach out to the hospital or clinic where the procedure was performed to ensure laws are being followed.

Noncompliance by clinics or hospitals would trigger an unannounced inspection.

The latest version of the legislation does not ban clinic workers from asking ambulances to drive without sirens or lights, a change called for by Greitens.

Southeast Missourian staff writer Mark Bliss contributed to this story.