Missouri and Arizona have added pro-abortion initiatives to their Nov. 5 ballot, bringing the number of states with similar measures to eight.
Ballots in both states invite voters to amend their state constitutions to allow abortions. And with wide-ranging definitions for “health of the mother” and “health care provider,” legal experts say that pregnant women in Missouri and Arizona would be able to get abortions for any reason up to the time of birth.
Meanwhile, voters in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota will also grapple with similar ballot initiatives.
Missouri’s ballot measure, titled “The Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” would codify the right to abortion in state law if voters approve it. The initiative would allow the state legislature to pass laws regulating abortion after fetal viability, but also would prohibit lawmakers from restricting abortions “needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
Arizona’s abortion amendment would establish a “fundamental right to abortion” and prohibit laws that deny, restrict, or interfere with abortions after fetal viability when the procedures are “necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.”
Both ballot initiatives, if approved, would leave the decision of what is necessary to protect a woman’s “health” to “health care professionals,” rather than medical doctors.
According to Missouri law, a health care professional is a person who is licensed, accredited, or certified by the state to perform specific health services. This definition includes physicians, surgeons, dentists, podiatrists, pharmacists, psychologists, and nurses.
Arizona law defines a health care provider as “a person or organization that provides health care to prevent, diagnose, or treat illness or injury.” This includes those who work at a licensed health care institution or provide health care in a fieldwork setting, such as social workers.
Because the texts of the Missouri and Arizona constitutional amendments contain no limitations on what “health” means or definitions of “health care professional,” the measures, if passed, would essentially legalize abortion at any stage of the pregnancy. Critics argue that anyone who claims medical expertise and asserts that the mother would benefit physically, emotionally, or otherwise by killing the unborn child could legally justify an abortion.
Missouri and Arizona have stricken the term woman from their abortion initiatives by using the terms pregnant person and pregnant individual, respectively.
Midwestern Regional Director for SBA Pro-Life America Sue Liebel warned voters what is at stake in November:
“The abortion lobby’s ballot measure would end thousands of lives. Unborn children who have heartbeats, feel pain, suck their thumbs, smile and even survive outside of the womb will no longer be protected in Missouri if this extreme measure passes. Missouri would become as radical as California in allowing horrific late-term abortions and forcing the taxpayer to fund them.
“Missouri’s all-trimester abortion amendment gives the abortion industry a free pass from operating under any health and safety requirements from the state. With Missouri Planned Parenthood business’ record of breaking the law, women and girls will be at risk if the state’s abortion industry goes unregulated. In the past few years, Missouri Planned Parenthood businesses were caught using moldy abortion equipment, ignoring informed consent laws, disregarding the law for 15 years to report when a woman has a complication, and allegedly being willing to traffick a 13-year-old out of state.”
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