The assault on women’s reproductive rights in state legislatures across the country has ramped up since the Supreme Court signaled in December that it might uphold a Mississippi ban on abortion at 15 weeks of gestation and dismantle the landmark ruling in Roe vs. Wade that protects a woman’s right to an abortion.
After the court let stand a diabolical law that deputizes private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion in Texas starting at six weeks of pregnancy, more than 10 states introduced copycat laws. But no legislation tests constitutional and legal limits like an amendment — stuck into a Missouri House of Representatives bill on prescription drug pricing — that would make it a crime to help a Missouri woman get an abortion outside the state at any point in her pregnancy (unless her life is endangered by continuing the pregnancy.) Mimicking the Texas law, the measure would be enforced through lawsuits brought by private citizens, not state officials.
If the bill passes with this amendment, no one could perform an abortion on a woman from Missouri or help her get an abortion “regardless of where the abortion is or will be performed.” That would restrict health professionals from performing the abortion and people from providing information, transportation or funds to someone seeking an out-of-state abortion. Even “providing internet service that allows Missouri residents to access any website, that encourages or facilities efforts to obtain elective abortions” would be banned. Abortion is legal in Missouri up until 22 weeks, but since there is only one abortion clinic in the state and an array of time-consuming rules, many pregnant women wanting an abortion travel to Illinois or other nearby states that offer services.
Setting aside the bill’s impact on abortion access, giving private citizens the right to control — via lawsuits — the behavior of Missouri residents outside the state is absurd. As much as they might like to, state legislatures can’t pass laws that extend beyond their own jurisdiction, and they certainly don’t have a right to control what legal activities women undertake outside the boundaries of the state.
The legislator behind this amendment is Missouri Republican and lawyer Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a mother of six who is sometimes compared to conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Coleman has gained some notoriety for her antiabortion bills and her embrace of the twisted logic that abrogating a woman’s right to abortion actually empowers her. The bizarre theory claims that the right to abortion is now unnecessary because bearing children no longer prevents professional achievement for women — and that having children empowers women.
There is no instance when the loss of rights has empowered anyone. The right to abortion has always been about choice — something that Barrett, 50, and Coleman, 40, have enjoyed throughout their reproductive years.
