Missouri moved to ban abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy, joining a host of states looking to get their laws before the Supreme Court.
Missouri is poised to become the eighth state this year to enact severe new restrictions on abortion after the state legislature on Friday easily passed a measure that would ban most abortions after the eighth week of pregnancy. The governor is expected to sign the bill once it reaches his desk.
“Thanks to the leaders in the House and Senate, we have the opportunity to be one of the strongest pro-life states in the country,” Republican Governor Mike Parson said at a press conference in advance of the bill’s passage.
Missouri lawmakers did not provide for any exception in the case of a pregnancy arising from rape or incest. The bill would allow for the procedure if the fetus poses a medical risk to the mother, but only where the mother faces death or permanent disability.
Missouri’s H. B. 126, which passed through the House on a vote of 110-44, is similar to a crop of bills known as “fetal heartbeat” measures which seek to ban abortions after a nascent heartbeat is able to be detected in utero, typically around six to eight weeks into pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.
In defending the bill Friday, Republican Representative Barry Hovis, a former law enforcement officer, argued that “most” of the rapes he’d encountered over the years had been “date rapes or consensual rapes” and that there are ways for victims to address pregnancy concerns.
