Is Missouri Abortion Free? Sadly, the Answer is No

In a report earlier this week, Operation Rescue announced that the state of Missouri is abortion free. Sadly, The Daily Citizen can confirm that likely isn’t the case.

Chemical abortions, which utilize the abortion pill and are also called medical abortions, are still being distributed from the St. Louis, Missouri Planned Parenthood, the last active abortion clinic in the state. Patients who need a surgical abortion are scheduled to receive the procedure at Planned Parenthood’s new mega clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois, which is located a short distance away across the river from the St. Louis location.

This is despite a report from Operation Rescue, a pro-life group that monitors abortion clinics, proclaiming that “Missouri appears to be the first state in America without an abortion facility.”

“While the [St. Louis] Planned Parenthood remains open and licensed for abortions, we confirmed that none are being done there. … There is no operational abortion facility in the State of Missouri, making it the first Abortion-Free State at this time,” Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said last week.

But on request from The Daily Citizen, a local pregnancy resource center contact called the St. Louis Planned Parenthood and discovered that the abortion business was still taking appointments for the abortion pill and was even willing to take a credit card payment over the phone.

If the patient needs a surgical abortion, that can be scheduled as well from the St. Louis Planned Parenthood and all of the pre-appointment work completed as well. There’s probably even a deal on the table between the two clinics to share the profits from the abortions scheduled by St. Louis.

It also appears that the temporary halting of surgical abortions in St. Louis has more to do with the coronavirus than with the organization suddenly rethinking its philosophy.

In November, COVID-19 cases were spiking in the city and hospitals had made the decision to limit any elective procedures for the foreseeable future, and it’s not outside the realm of possibilities that the abortion business would follow suit.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported earlier last year that women were generally unlikely to go to the St. Louis clinic for abortions because of the state’s extensive pro-life laws, which includes requiring the patient to wait three days after the initial appointment to receive even the abortion pill. Many were already being sent across the river to Illinois or seeking out other locations.

Patients located in the Kansas City, Missouri area, the state’s other large metropolitan area, can easily access any abortion clinic across the border in the Kansas City, Kansas area.

Some of those restrictions have been removed after a court case decided this summer and reaffirmed in December, which allows abortionists to bypass those state restrictions and send the abortion pill through the mail.

The announcement that Missouri no longer had an abortion clinic was suspect. After all, the St. Louis Planned Parenthood has spent tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, trying to keep its last abortion clinic in the state operational over the last year after several legal battles. It makes no sense for the clinic to voluntarily give up the practice without cause.

After all, abortion is the most profitable business of Planned Parenthood.

Even if the St. Louis location is no longer performing abortions, it was likely only temporary. Abortion won’t stop until the hearts and minds of women and men across the country are changed when it comes to the issue of life.

Photo from TNS/ABACA/REUTERS