A lawmaker is Missouri proposed legislation this week that would allow private citizens to be sued for helping women obtain abortions out-of-state, The Washington Post reported. The bill is similar to a law in Texas that outlaws abortions after fetal heartbeat detection and empowers residents to pursue legal action against anyone who provides an illegal abortion or aids a woman seeking an illegal abortion.
State Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), who drafted the bill, attached the measure as an amendment to several other abortion bills waiting to be heard on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives.
“If your neighboring state doesn’t have pro-life protections, it minimizes the ability to protect the unborn in your state,” Coleman told The Post.
The Post noted that Missouri has one remaining abortion clinic in the state. Women seeking an abortion travel to Illinois to undergo the procedure. Abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood opened a clinic on the Illinois-Missouri border three years ago.
Planned Parenthood press officer for state media campaigns Olivia Cappello told The Post that the bill is “wild” and “bonkers.” She described it as “the most extraordinary provision we have ever seen.”
Late last year, the United States Supreme Court allowed Texas’ abortion law, S.B. 8, to stay in effect after abortion clinics in the state and the Department of Justice challengened the law. Shortly after, the Supreme Court returned the abortion clinics’ case back to a federal appeals court.
Other states, such as Arizona and Florida, have proposed 15-week abortion bans, which is mainstream in most of Europe. A 15-week abortion ban is currently under review by the Supreme Court in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Dobbs is the first case in decades that could overturn Roe v. Wade. A decision is expected next summer.