Two Republicans in Missouri have filed bills proposing abortion should legally be recognized as murder.
State Senator Mike Moon and State Representative Bob Titus have both filed bills titled the Abolition of Abortion in Missouri Act, which would permit women who get abortions in the state to be charged with murder.
The policy does allow women to present a “duress” defense and allows exceptions if the procedure was lawfully performed by a doctor to save the mother’s life. The mother also could not be charged with murder if a doctor accidentally aborts a baby during a life-saving procedure.
Anyone who performs an abortion can be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. Doctors or medical professionals could lose their licenses.
The bills were filed ahead of the 2024 legislative session, which begins in January.
Titus’s bill will need the approval of the legislature and Governor Mike Parson’s signature to take effect. Moon’s version of the bill would ultimately be put before Missouri voters.
“While the mainstream anti-abortion movement tries to publicly distance themselves from the politically and socially unpopular insistence to criminally punish people for accessing abortion care, these bills are a stepping stone for a small fringe group of extremists to intentionally criminalize people seeking abortions,” said Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, told The Kansas City Star.
After the Supreme Court repealed its decision in 1973’s Roe v. Wade during the summer of 2022, a state law broadly banning abortion took effect. The state law only permits abortion in the case of a medical emergency. There are no exceptions if the pregnancy was conceived through rape or incest.
Pro-abortion activists have lobbied to have a question about abortion access on the 2024 ballot. However, the exact language of the question has become a contentious tug-of-war between conservatives and progressives in the state.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who is running for governor as a Republican, proposed the question ask voters if they would support allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth, without requiring a medical license or potentially being subject to medical malpractice.”
Missouri ACLU attorney Tony Rothert accused Ashcroft of acting “as if he were playing the political spin and manipulation-edition of mad libs.”
“It is the secretary’s duty to set aside his personal bias against the proposals and craft a neutral statement,” said Rothert at a hearing in September, per AP News.
A lower court ruled against Ashcroft’s wording and the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in November.
“My responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure the people of Missouri have ballot language that they can understand and trust,” Ashcroft said in a statement. “If these petitions make it to the ballot, the people will decide. I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure Missourians know the truth.”
