JEFFERSON CITY – The following is a statement from Abortion Action Missouri, Executive Director, Mallory Schwarz:
“We are grateful that Judge Zhang took the time and intention…to hear from those on the front line, providers of abortion care, about the impact of medically unnecessary, politically motivated facility licensing requirements that have never been about health and safety. The facility requirements in question today were designed to target and ultimately close Planned Parenthood abortion clinics as a part of a concentrated and politically motivated campaign to deny Missourians access to abortion.
“…our coalition partners made the expert case, laying out the constitutional violations of these facility requirements under Missourians’ guaranteed rights to reproductive freedom established by a vote of the people on Amendment 3.
“Ultimately we know that the decision on these requirements, and all of the medically unnecessary and anti-abortion laws on the books in our state, will come down to the Missouri State Supreme Court; but I am hopeful…that this court will reconsider the motion presented, and that Missourians will be able to access the abortion care they need in their own communities as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will never stop fighting— whether in the Courts, in the State Capitol, or in our own communities to build a Missouri future marked by reproductive freedom.”