Missouri attorney general may sue Kansas City over aid for out-of-state abortions

St. Louis, Mo., Jul 6, 2022 / 15:02 pm

Native lawmakers in Missouri’s two largest cities, St. Louis and Kansas Metropolis, are taking steps to help girls who wish to journey to different states for abortions, after the follow grew to become unlawful in Missouri in late June.

A decision handed by the Kansas Metropolis Council June 30 directs town supervisor to develop a plan for reimbursement for “healthcare-related journey bills and every other boundaries for healthcare not out there throughout the Metropolis’s limits.” Whereas the decision doesn’t point out abortion by identify, it hints that “current impediments have been imposed to accessing full, complete reproductive healthcare within the State of Missouri.” The decision additionally directs town supervisor to barter a mid-year enrollment interval for metropolis staff to decide on a healthcare plan that covers abortions. 

On the opposite facet of the state, a invoice into account in St. Louis would create a municipal “Reproductive Fairness Fund,” directing $1 million of town’s American Rescue Plan funds — federal {dollars} given to the state for COVID aid — towards paying journey bills for ladies in search of abortions exterior Missouri. The mayor of St. Louis has stated she is going to signal the invoice ought to it attain her desk. 

Missouri is one in every of greater than a dozen states with a “set off regulation” banning just about all abortions, which got here into impact quickly after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s June 24 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the query of abortion coverage to the states.