A federal judge in Missouri paused an abortion ban Tuesday, a day before the state was set to criminalize abortions after eight weeks, to allow pending legal challenges against it to proceed.
"The various sections specifying prohibitions on abortions at various weeks before viability cannot be allowed to go into effect on August 28, as scheduled," U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs wrote in an 11-page opinion, CNN reported.
"However formulated, the legislation on its face conflicts with the Supreme Court ruling that neither legislative or judicial limits on abortion can be measured by specified weeks or development of a fetus; instead, 'viability' is the sole test for a State's authority to prohibit abortions where there is no maternal health issue," Sachs wrote.
Missouri became a flash point among other conservative states that sought to challenge the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman's right to an abortion, triggering a wave of lawsuits from abortion-rights advocacy groups that have sought to delay or overturn those laws.
Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a suit against the state, saying the law was unconstitutional and contrary to the Supreme Court's Roe decision that legalized abortion nationally.
The Missouri law signed in May would ban abortions before many women know they are pregnant, with no exceptions for rape or incest, making it one of the harshest in the country. The measure also includes less-strict bans ranging from 14 weeks to 20 weeks, The Associated Press reported.
"We are in the fight of our lives to protect abortion for 1.1 million Missouri women of reproductive age in our state," Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said last month. "The attacks are relentless, but our commitment to our patients' rights and freedoms is unwavering."
While conservatives championed the move in the state, with Missouri House speaker Elijah Haahr, a Republican, saying the measure "stood for the unborn," opponents argued it would only drive women to seek procedures out of state or seek unsafe operations on their own.
"We will be killing women with this bill," Rep. Sarah Unsicker, a Democrat, said before the vote.
Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, has vowed to make Missouri "one of the strongest pro-life states in the country."
Information for this article was contributed by Lindsey Bever of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/28/2019