April 24, 2024

Following the Missouri State Legislature’s passing of Representative Cody Smith’s bill to bar reproductive health clinics from receiving public funding, Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan released the following statement: 

“It is unbelievably frustrating but unsurprising that one of the only pieces of legislation the Republican supermajority in the Missouri State Legislature has been able to pass this session was another attack on reproductive and family planning freedom, despite watching voters across the country reject this exact type of extreme overreach at the ballot box. Since June 2022, when the Trump-appointed Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade and Missouri became the first state to effectively make every abortion illegal due to a Republican trigger law, we have heard countless horrific stories of pregnant women across the country denied lifesaving care and doctors threatened with prosecution for doing their jobs. 

“Despite the heartbreaking stories of the impacts the cruel abortion ban has had on Missouri mothers, Missouri Republicans have consistently doubled- down on their war against reproductive and family planning freedom this legislative session, voting against allowing abortion exceptions in cases of rape or incest and against protecting contraceptives and IVF services. Instead of working to improve access to quality, affordable healthcare, the Republicans in the state legislature have been working relentlessly to take more and more rights away from hard-working Missourians. 

"Extremist politicians in Jefferson City know that voters across the political spectrum want the government to stay out of their personal and intimate healthcare decisions, which is why they aren’t stopping at our right to plan our families privately and are coming for our ability to check their power at the ballot box through the initiative petition process,” Carnahan said. 

Background: 

On April 24, 2024, the Missouri House of Representatives passed Rep. Cody Smith’s HB2634, which barred Planned Parenthood from receiving public funding despite not performing abortions in Missouri. Every Republican legislator supported this bill, zero Democrats supported this bill. 

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 1,327,155 Missourians are enrolling in Medicaid as of December 2023. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 8.4 percent of Missourians, 11 percent of Missouri women, did not have health insurance coverage in 2022. According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ 2024 Report, Missouri’s pregnancy-related death rate for Missouri mothers from 2018-2020 was 32 deaths per 100,000 live births, a significant increase from 25.2 per 100,000 as reported in the previous multi-year report for 2017-2019. Pregnancy-related death rates among Black/African American mothers were three times higher than for white mothers.

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri reported serving over 25,000 Missourians at over 40,000 patient visits to access STI screenings (39,754 screenings), birth control and family planning services (14,007 Birth Control dispensed or prescribed), and nearly 3,000 cancer screenings between July 2021 and June 2022. Planned Parenthood does not currently provide abortion services at any clinic in the state of Missouri. 

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Media Contact: 

Chelsea Rodriguez, Communications Director

press@missouridems.org