A Missouri judge says the state’s abortion ban isn’t enforceable, ensuring legal abortions

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge ruled Friday that Missouri’s near-total abortion ban is unenforceable under a new constitutional amendment, ensuring abortion will be legal in the state.

Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang issued an order blocking the state’s strict abortion law after a new abortion-rights constitutional amendment recently took effect.

Missouri is one of five states where voters approved ballot measures in the 2024 general election to add the right to an abortion to their state constitutions. The Missouri amendment does not specifically override any laws. Instead, advocates must ask courts to knock down bans they believe are now unconstitutional.

Zhang’s order is temporary, but it signals that she’s likely to find the ban unconstitutional after the lawsuit that abortion-rights supporters filed plays out.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, an abortion opponent, issued an opinion agreeing that most abortions would be legal when the amendment took effect.

But Bailey’s office is still fighting for a ban on most abortions after viability, along with a number of regulations that Planned Parenthood argues made it nearly impossible to offer abortions in the state even before abortion was almost completely banned in 2022.

Missouri’s constitutional amendment allows lawmakers to restrict abortion after viability, with exceptions to “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

The term “viability” is used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say it is sometime after the 21st week of pregnancy.

Other abortion laws that Bailey wants to keep include a 72-hour waiting period before an abortion can be performed; bans on abortions based on race, sex or a possible Down syndrome diagnosis; and a requirement that medical facilities that provide abortions be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers.

The Associated Press