You read that right!
From lifenews.com and written by Ben Johnson | May 30, 2025 | 2:00PM | Jefferson City, Missouri: Court Shuts Down Every Abortion Clinic in Missouri - LifeNews.com
Pro-life advocates are celebrating a state Supreme Court ruling that “effectively shuts down abortion clinics” for the time being and exposes Planned Parenthood facilities for acting “more like a criminal enterprise than any kind of legitimate health care entity.”
The Missouri Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that stopped the state from requiring abortion facilities to meet health and safety codes, assure the mother had not been coerced into an abortion, and for the facility to make adequate preparations in the event of a botched abortion. The high court did not address the underlying substance of the issue, instead rejecting the judge’s legal reasoning and returning the decision to her for reevaluation.
“What the Supreme Court said was that the lower court did not apply the proper standard: The lower court said any likelihood, any chance of success on the merits, is sufficient. And that is not legally accurate,” explained Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday.
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“We’re going to take a moment to celebrate, because this effectively shuts down abortion clinics in the state of Missouri for the time being,” added Bailey.
In December, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang cited Amendment 3 as she prevented the state from enforcing numerous health and safety regulations including requirements that abortionists have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles in the event of complications, obtain a mother’s informed consent before committing the abortion, observe a 72-hour waiting period, and assure that mothers consume the abortion pill on the premises rather than remotely. In February, Zhang blocked a requirement that abortion facilities receive licenses from the state, calling it “discriminatory” and asserting it did “not treat services provided in abortion facilities the same as other types of similarly situated health care, including miscarriage care.” In March court filings, the state observed that Zhang’s injunction left the state’s abortion industry “functionally unregulated,” operating as a law unto itself with “no guarantee of health and safety” for the state’s women.
The radical group Right By You sued to strike down a state requirement that parents give their consent before underage girls have an abortion, citing Amendment 3. The group, which facilitates abortions for minors, filed a 59-page legal brief in Jackson County on April 30.
“Planned Parenthood at this point, is starting to look more like a criminal enterprise than any kind of legitimate health care entity,” Bailey told Perkins. “We said all along that Amendment 3 was bad, because it was not only going to result in the death of innocent children, but potentially harm to women, as well. And as soon as Amendment 3 passed, Planned Parenthood marched to court and said that they shouldn’t have to have ultrasounds anymore. … They didn’t have to have any plan to prevent hemorrhaging or sepsis of their ‘patients,’ that their facilities didn’t have to be licensed, that they didn’t need to sterilize their equipment, and that they didn’t have to get informed consent voluntarily from the women before they performed these abortions.”
“These are pernicious and dangerous positions that Planned Parenthood has taken in court. And they convinced a judge in Kansas City that they were correct that Amendment 3 wiped all of that out,” continued Bailey. “I’m proud to say that [Tuesday] we got that action reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court.”
Ample evidence exists that the state abortion industry violates each provision.
Informed consent. State law does not allow an abortionist to commit an abortion “unless and until the [abortionist] has obtained from the woman her voluntary and informed consent given freely and without coercion.” Nearly three-quarters (74%) of all post-abortive mothers say they felt some form of coercion to have an abortion, according to a 2017 study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, including 58% who “reported aborting to make others happy.” Evidence suggests coerced abortion has taken place in Missouri. “I went to Planned Parenthood [in St. Louis] … and I was actually forced to get an abortion. And it was something that I regretted,” a young woman named Anya told Students for Life of America in 2015. “It was my mom’s decision. … She was like, ‘You need to have this done, or you can’t stay here.’”
“I didn’t know it was going to be so traumatic,” remembered the mournful young lady, by then the mother of three children. “I didn’t know I was going to be affected by it for the rest of my life.”
Health and safety standards. State law (19 CSR 30-30.060) requires abortion facilities to meet the same health and safety procedures as other surgical units. During a 2018 inspection of a Missouri Planned Parenthood office, state health inspectors found that abortionists used an abortion suction machine clogged with “blackish gray residue” that inspectors later identified as black mold. Planned Parenthood techs used the potentially infection-transmitting machine, although the replacement hose lay unused in a nearby cabinet. They documented that other equipment contained “rusted areas, old peeling tape, dried adhesive residue” and “uncleanable surfaces,” as well as the potential presence of mold or human blood during the unannounced September 26 inspection of Planned Parenthood’s Columbia Health Center in Columbia, Missouri.
The number of women harmed by the abortion industry is unknown, in part, because abortionists admit they do not track all such impacts, even when required by law. David Eisenberg, former medical director at Planned Parenthood, admitted in a 2018 court deposition involving then-State Attorney General Josh Hawley that Planned Parenthood facilities had not filed reports of abortion-related complication for 15 years. Planned Parenthood abortionist Colleen McNicholas made a similar admission the same year in a separate case.
Abortion industry employees dismiss such laws as “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws” and insisted state legislators imposed the safety guidelines only to interfere with their profitability. State health protections “were based on making it harder to access abortion. And right now, without these injunctions in place, abortion is out of reach of Missourians,” Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, complained to local media. But Bailey had said the legislature enacted the pro-women health code protections to make Missouri “the safest state in the nation for women and families.”
Bailey called the ruling “a win for common sense, for basic medical safety, and for the sanctity of human life.”
Zhang threw out the health protections in the name of Amendment 3, which narrowly passed a state referendum last November. The controversial provision amended the state constitution to include a woman’s “right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives.” Although it allows voters to protect unborn life after a baby reaches the age of viability, it contains a broad exception for the alleged “health” of the mother.
But critics say the amendment deliberately contained vague language as a Trojan Horse to undo health and safety standards. Similarly elliptical wording went into Ohio’s Issue 1 and other well-financed state referenda loosening state pro-life laws in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision.
A state amendment allows maximum room for judicial activism, said Bailey. “The Supreme Court of Missouri interprets statutes” enacted through the legislature “by giving the words of their plain and ordinary meaning.” But “when it comes to initiative petitions adopted by the people, the court applies a broader interpretive methodology and gives the words endless possible meanings. And that’s why the drafters of Amendment 3 specifically chose vague and ambiguous language, so they could … undermine the state’s ability to guarantee health and safety for women.”
“Amendment 3 was especially dangerous,” explained Bailey. “The people of the state of Missouri were defrauded by the purveyors of Amendment 3. They sold people on this idea that you have a constitutional right to kill innocent children and that there should be no limitations on it. What they didn’t explain is that it would eliminate all health and safety regulations.”
It is, however, a temporary victory. Pro-abortion groups believe they will convince Zhang, a liberal judicial activist, to side with them under any legal standard. “A majority of Missouri voters passed Amendment 3” to “protect reproductive freedom,” said the ACLU of Missouri, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers in a joint statement last month. “Patients deserve more access to [abortion], not less. We will fight these attacks on our fundamental rights to ensure all Missourians continue to have access to abortion.”
“Planned Parenthood has already said they’re going to file a new motion for preliminary injunction, and they anticipate being able to obtain that injunction” in Jackson County, Missouri, said Bailey.
But, Bailey explained, he now has the ability to expedite the removal of preliminary injunctions — a problem for conservatives from the state to the national level. He hailed the passage of Senate Bill 22, which primarily aimed to allow the state election chief to rewrite the wording of ballot initiatives up to three times — but also provided that the state attorney general can appeal any preliminary injunction against any provision of the state constitution, statute, or regulation. Governor Mike Kehoe (R) signed the bill into law on April 24. “This is the first time in state history we’ve had that authority,” noted Bailey. “Even if Planned Parenthood is able to convince this judge a second time that doctors at abortion clinics don’t have to sterilize instruments, or be licensed, or that the facilities don’t have to have complication plans to prevent against hemorrhaging and sepsis of women, we will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. We now have that legal authority, because of the passage of Senate Bill 22.”
“I will not stop fighting to prevent the criminal enterprise of Planned Parenthood from killing babies and harming women in the state of Missouri, and this court case is going to be front and center on the frontlines of that fight,” vowed Bailey."
LifeNews Note: Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
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