Latest news with #BrianSeitz
Washington Post
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Missouri voters to be asked to undo abortion protections passed last year
The Missouri Senate approved a proposal late Wednesday that will place a restrictive abortion referendum on the ballot likely next year, imperiling state constitutional protections for the procedure passed just six months ago. The 2024 citizen-led measure, which survived a lengthy court battle, enshrined in the state constitution 'the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care' up until fetal viability, about 24 weeks. Missouri state law had allowed abortions only to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape and incest. Republican legislators now want to reverse that outcome and are asking Missourians to vote on a new constitutional amendment that would repeal Amendment 3 and ban most abortions after 12 weeks — with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape and incest. Abortion proponents crowded the Senate chamber in the state capital in Jefferson City, shouting 'stop the ban' as the lawmakers voted 21-11 to approve the referendum measure in the final week of their session. 'Missourians proved by passing Amendment 3 at the ballot box [that] people want access to abortion care,' the ACLU of Missouri said in a statement. 'They are literally rewriting the rules … in an attempt to reinstate Missouri's total abortion ban.' Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Platte County, posted on X during the debate, 'Missouri, the fight to MAINTAIN our bodily autonomy is on.' Republican lawmakers have repeatedly cast last year's ballot victory for abortion access as voter backlash between two extreme choices — one a complete ban with no exceptions for rape and incest, another that allows the procedure up until fetal viability. An abortion ban with exceptions for rape and incest would be more palatable to voters, they've argued. Rep. Brian Seitz, a Baptist pastor from Branson who led the effort in the House, has said Missourians deserve better options 'that are more in line with their values.' 'Voters in the past few years were given the choice between two extremes, choices with no middle ground,' Seitz said recently. 'Zero abortions, or what we have now, a landscape that allows for unfettered access.' House Speaker Jon Patterson, a doctor from the Kansas City area, was the only Republican to oppose a second referendum as that chamber took final action several weeks ago. Surgical abortions have resumed at Missouri's Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis. But providers are still battling the state in court over medication abortions, which today is the more common method for terminating pregnancies. The referendum that will likely go before voters next year also prohibits public funds from being used to pay for certain abortions; prohibits the use of surgeries, hormones or drugs to assist a child with gender transition; and requires parental consent prior to an abortion for minors. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion in 2022, 19 states have passed measures to ban or restrict the procedure and voters in more than a dozen states have passed abortion-related ballot protections, according to Paula M. Lantz, a health policy professor at the University of Michigan. Yet the era of ballot initiatives to safeguard abortion rights may have peaked last year, according to Lantz. Most states that still have restrictive abortion laws don't give citizens the power to put constitutional questions before voters, she said. Legislators have far more leeway. 'As we are seeing in Missouri, legislators are now countering with a new restrictive amendment for voters to consider,' Lantz said. 'If legislators are intent upon passing severely restrictive abortion laws, they can engage in ongoing constitutional amendment battles at the voting booth. It is much easier for legislators to get a ballot initiative in front of voters than citizens who must go through layered administrative processes and secure thousands of signatures.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Push for Missouri abortion ban isn't about protecting women. It's about punishing them
Protestors with Abortion Action Missouri interrupt Missouri House debate of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment on April 15, chanting: "When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back" (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent). Debate about abortion is often divorced from reality. But I was still stunned by the stream of elaborate and hurtful lies from Missouri lawmakers at the recent hearing on the bill to overturn Amendment 3. House Joint Resolution 73 is an attempt to reinstate the abortion ban that Missouri voters rejected when we passed Amendment 3. The bill itself, which would put the legality of abortion back on the ballot, is written to be as misleading as possible. For example, it contains a ballot summary that doesn't tell voters that it would put the ban back in effect. It instead asks voters if they want to protect treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. But the hearing was amazing for the way Republican legislators openly infantilized and lied about Missouri voters, women and doctors. The bill sponsor, Republican state Rep. Brian Seitz of Branson, opened with testimony tightly packed with falsehoods and paternalism: 'The preeminent facet of this legislation is that it protects women. What Amendment 3 took away from them, this legislation seeks to restore.' The implication is that I, like all women, need to be protected from my choices about my family, life and health care. I also need to be protected from the vote that I cast in November to take away the state's authority to make those decisions for me. This is because I, like the majority of Missouri voters, lack the intelligence to have understood what I was voting for on a widely and fiercely debated issue. This theme of 'protecting' women is also about justifying medically inappropriate abortion regulations. These regulations are sold as health protections but are actually intended to be impossible to comply with, so that abortion clinics can't operate. These are 'targeted regulation of abortion providers,' or 'TRAP' laws. Amendment 3 forecloses that backdoor ban strategy by putting the burden on the state to prove that a regulation actually has a health benefit. Amendment 3 also bars discrimination against abortion care. It's easy to tell when a law discriminates against abortion care by looking at whether the same regulations apply to miscarriage care, because abortion involves the same procedures and medications. Seitz went on to make the particularly fanciful claim that 'this legislation seeks to align itself with the will of the voter' because 'the people expressed that they wanted exceptions.' We did not express that we wanted exceptions. Amendment 3 had nothing to do with and no mention of exceptions. What voters said is that we don't want abortion to be banned in Missouri anymore. The claim that what voters really wanted was for abortion to continue to be banned but with exceptions for those victims of rape and incest who can jump through all the hoops our anti-exceptions legislature has in store for them is a fantastical lie. 'Incest' refers to a child raped and impregnanted by a family member. Even House Speaker Jon Patterson of Lee's Summit (who is a doctor and was the lone Republican to vote against the bill) acknowledged that a child who is being sexually abused is not likely to realize she is pregnant by the 12 week cut off for the victim exception in HJR 73. And if this child does realize what is happening to her before 12 weeks, how is she supposed to end her pregnancy if there are no functioning abortion clinics in this state? The hearing devolved into legislators interrogating testifying pastors about when life begins and berating doctors who testified that their patients were harmed under the ban. State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, responded vehemently to a doctor recounting how the ban had caused harm to her miscarrying patients, including one who bled for four weeks after being denied a procedure to evacuate her uterus. Brattin, like lawmakers across the country, blamed doctors for not understanding the law. 'Negligence of the law is no excuse' he said repeatedly. I'm pretty sure what he meant to say is 'ignorance of the law is no excuse,' which he illustrated with the classic example that not knowing the speed limit is not an excuse for speeding. But I think Brattin hit on an accidental insight with 'negligence of the law is no excuse.' Lawmakers need to own the outcomes of the laws they pass. Doctors provide care based on what their lawyers say they can or cannot do. As ProPublica has documented in Texas, many hospital lawyers are telling doctors they can't provide miscarriage care until the patient shows signs of infection or other life threatening complications when fetal heart tones can still be detected. Others are providing no guidance or legal support at all, leaving doctors to navigate the risk of criminal prosecution unaided. ProPublica has reported on the deaths of five women denied abortion care. Another 20 women who survived have sued Texas. Missouri's medical emergency 'exception' language in both the now enjoined ban and HJR 73 is nearly identical to Texas' — but worse. It required not just that a patient be at 'a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function,' but that the impairment be 'substantial and irreversible.' And the exception wasn't actually an exception. It was a defense to the crime of providing any abortion that the doctor would have the burden of proving at trial. Missouri has fewer reported stories than Texas of women injured because we are a small state that borders states where abortion is legal. But we know it happened here, too. When Mylissa Farmer was miscarrying she was sent to a Kansas hospital three hours away for treatment. She was turned away in Kansas where abortion is legal but heavily restricted. When she was finally able to get an abortion in Illinois, she was in excruciating pain and had an infection. The rate of sepsis among pregnant women, which can be fatal, has increased by 50% since Texas banned abortion. There's no reason to think women here weren't similarly endangered when Missouri's ban was in effect. And yet, Brattin yelled that the ban's emergency exception had been perfectly clear. It wasn't the law but doctors' ignorance of it that caused women who had lost their babies to bleed for weeks. Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that lawmakers didn't intend to imperil pregnant women. Intent doesn't matter. As Brattin put it: 'negligence of the law is no excuse.' And at this point, it's not negligence but deliberate indifference, given that injuries have been widely reported and a doctor told Brattin to his face that she had treated patients who were denied miscarriage care. The harm is known, but he and his fellow Republicans do not care. Miscarrying women are justifiable collateral damage in their attack on the main target: women and girls who do not want to continue their pregnancies. They want the opposite of safer abortion. They want to reinstate the ban so that we have to have later, more complicated or invasive procedures after traveling out of state, or to self manage with abortion medication from the internet without local medical supervision. They want anyone who needs an abortion to suffer as much as possible. It's not protection, it's punishment.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Missouri House passes bill to void NDAs in child sex abuse cases
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A bill that would void non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in child sexual abuse cases received unanimous approval from Missouri's House on Tuesday, April 22. Sponsored by Republican state Rep. Brian Seitz from Branson, the bill is now headed toward the Missouri Senate. House Bill 709 supporters say that NDAs are often used to silence underage victims of sex abuse. 'The only way healing occurs in trauma is to give the victim back their voice and freedom,' Christa Yandell, the mother of a boy who was a victim of sex abuse at Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, testified to the House. 'An NDA protects the abuser, not the victim. NDA's have no place in sexual abuse cases.' Man serving life sentence for Kanakuk sexual abuse denied parole The bill — titled 'Trey's Law' — is named for Trey Carlock, who was a victim of sexual abuse at Kanakuk and later died by suicide at the age of 28. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Missouri lawmakers advance proposed repeal of abortion-rights measure approved by voters
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's Republican-led House advanced a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday asking voters to repeal an abortion-rights measure they narrowly approved last year and instead ban most abortions with exceptions for rape and incest. Democrats and abortion-rights activists denounced the public policy swing as an affront to the will of voters. But Republicans contend they are simply giving voters a second chance — and are confident they will change their minds. 'Missourians deserve to be presented with better options at the ballot box -- options that are more in line with their values,' said Republican Rep. Brian Seitz, who is handling the measure. The abortion landscape across the U.S. has been shifting since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortion and clearing the way for bans in Missouri and elsewhere to take effect. Since then, Missouri is the only state where voters have overturned a law barring most abortions at all stages of pregnancy. A constitutional amendment, passed by about 52% in November, guarantees a right to abortion until fetal viability — generally considered sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy — and allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women. A limited number of surgical abortions have since occurred in Missouri, but medication abortions remain on hold while Planned Parenthood wrangles with the state over abortion regulations. In addition to repealing the abortion-rights amendment, the new measure would allow abortions only for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. It also would prohibit gender transition surgeries, hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors, which already are barred under state law. The proposal won initial House approval by 94-50 vote, with House Speaker Jon Patterson among just two Republicans siding with Democrats in opposition. Another House vote is needed to send the measure to the Senate, where approval would place it on a future Missouri ballot. Some Republican lawmakers assert that voters are opposed to most abortions but desire options for rape and incest and state regulations setting health and safety standards for abortion providers. Democratic lawmakers read aloud the written testimony of numerous residents who came to the Capitol last week to testify against the measure but were denied an opportunity to speak during a House committee hearing. "To repeal what they have already voted on is wrong,' Democratic Rep. Marla Smith said. Tuesday's debate came on the same day that a different House committee heard testimony on separate legislation that would allow abortions to be prosecuted as homicide. That bill did not advance, but it generated impassioned testimony. 'Our representatives seem to be sitting up here calling us stupid and saying our opinions don't matter,' said Chloe Mix, a Springfield resident who backed last year's abortion-rights amendment and opposes this year's measures. The Missouri House debate also came one day after the Legislature gave final approval to a bill limiting the courts' ability to rewrite summaries of ballot measures. That measure, which now goes to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, was prompted by Republican frustration that a judge rewrote the original ballot summary prepared for last year's abortion-rights amendment. Last year, voters in six other states approved ballot measures to bolster abortion rights, and three rejected them. In Arizona, a judge this year permanently blocked enforcement of a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, finding it violated the amendment adopted last year. A ballot measure in Montana last year that ensured the right to abortion didn't stop lawmakers from introducing several abortion measures this year. But none gained traction in the Legislature. ___ Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Associated Press
15-04-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Missouri lawmakers advance proposed repeal of abortion-rights measure approved by voters
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's Republican-led House advanced a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday asking voters to repeal an abortion-rights measure they narrowly approved last year and instead ban most abortions with exceptions for rape and incest. Democrats and abortion-rights activists denounced the public policy swing as an affront to the will of voters. But Republicans contend they are simply giving voters a second chance — and are confident they will change their minds. 'Missourians deserve to be presented with better options at the ballot box -- options that are more in line with their values,' said Republican Rep. Brian Seitz, who is handling the measure. The abortion landscape across the U.S. has been shifting since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortion and clearing the way for bans in Missouri and elsewhere to take effect. Since then, Missouri is the only state where voters have overturned a law barring most abortions at all stages of pregnancy. A constitutional amendment, passed by about 52% in November, guarantees a right to abortion until fetal viability — generally considered sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy — and allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women. A limited number of surgical abortions have since occurred in Missouri, but medication abortions remain on hold while Planned Parenthood wrangles with the state over abortion regulations. In addition to repealing the abortion-rights amendment, the new measure would allow abortions only for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. It also would prohibit gender transition surgeries, hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors, which already are barred under state law. The proposal won initial House approval by 94-50 vote, with House Speaker Jon Patterson among just two Republicans siding with Democrats in opposition. Another House vote is needed to send the measure to the Senate, where approval would place it on a future Missouri ballot. Some Republican lawmakers assert that voters are opposed to most abortions but desire options for rape and incest and state regulations setting health and safety standards for abortion providers. Democratic lawmakers read aloud the written testimony of numerous residents who came to the Capitol last week to testify against the measure but were denied an opportunity to speak during a House committee hearing. 'To repeal what they have already voted on is wrong,' Democratic Rep. Marla Smith said. Tuesday's debate came on the same day that a different House committee heard testimony on separate legislation that would allow abortions to be prosecuted as homicide. That bill did not advance, but it generated impassioned testimony. 'Our representatives seem to be sitting up here calling us stupid and saying our opinions don't matter,' said Chloe Mix, a Springfield resident who backed last year's abortion-rights amendment and opposes this year's measures. The Missouri House debate also came one day after the Legislature gave final approval to a bill limiting the courts' ability to rewrite summaries of ballot measures. That measure, which now goes to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, was prompted by Republican frustration that a judge rewrote the original ballot summary prepared for last year's abortion-rights amendment. Last year, voters in six other states approved ballot measures to bolster abortion rights, and three rejected them. In Arizona, a judge this year permanently blocked enforcement of a ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, finding it violated the amendment adopted last year. A ballot measure in Montana last year that ensured the right to abortion didn't stop lawmakers from introducing several abortion measures this year. But none gained traction in the Legislature. ___ Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill contributed from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
