‘God is perfect.’ Missouri Republicans unwilling to amend near-total abortion ban

When Missouri Senate Republicans brought a bill this week to ban Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid dollars, Democratic Sen. Tracy McCreery offered amendments aimed at loosening the state’s near-total ban on abortion.

The amendments would have allowed abortions in cases of rape and incest. Missouri law makes no exception for those situations. McCreery, from the St. Louis area, said the state went too far in banning abortion in nearly all instances.

But Sen. Sandy Crawford, a Buffalo Republican, pushed back.

“God is perfect,” Crawford said on the Senate floor. “God does not make mistakes and for some reason he allows that to happen. Bad things happen.”

Every Senate Republican present on the floor voted against McCreery’s amendments, which failed.

The contentious debate underscores an important dynamic within Missouri politics in an election year: even as a campaign to overturn Missouri’s strict ban on abortion is underway, generating more than $3 million in funding so far, Republican lawmakers show no signs of moderating their approach to abortion.

The reasoning is likely two-fold. An important, if simple, answer is that many lawmakers in the GOP-controlled General Assembly hold genuinely staunch anti-abortion views. Even before the state banned abortion in 2022, Missouri officials had for decades whittled away at access. By the time the ban went into effect, a single abortion clinic remained in the state.

But the districts of many lawmakers have also grown much more solidly Republican, shielding numerous legislators from truly competitive general elections. For many Republicans, the only real danger to re-election comes in the primary – potentially by a challenger who outmaneuvers you on abortion or another issue.

Republicans in Missouri control both chambers of the General Assembly and hold every statewide office.

At the same time, most Missourians appear to support some of abortion access. Polling conducted in 2022 by Saint Louis University and YouGov showed that a majority of Missourians were in favor of some level of legal abortion and disagreed with the state’s ban on abortion.

For Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, the answer as to why Republicans haven’t moderated on abortion comes down to politics. Republicans continue winning elections in Missouri, he said.

“This is not going to change down here until they start to lose elections over the issues that they believe in,” Rizzo said. “Why would they change?”

Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion lobbyist in Jefferson City, said that Republican lawmakers are reflecting the views of their constituents, who are anti-abortion and agree with the state’s ban as it’s written.

“This is reflecting what their constituents want,” he said. “No one I talked to had any heartburn about their votes.”

Senate Republicans this year appear not only unwilling to amend the ban — some are looking to push further. Senators on Wednesday debated a bill from Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican who is running for Congress, that would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving state Medicaid money.

Planned Parenthood has received zero state money for nearly two years amid ongoing legal battles over past attempts by Republicans to defund the organization. The organization’s two affiliates in Missouri, Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, no longer provide abortions in the state.

The St. Louis affiliate criticized Republican lawmakers in a social media post on Wednesday, pointing to the non-abortion services the organization provides including STI testing, cancer screenings, wellness exams and birth control.

Republicans were prevented from taking action on the bill this week as Senate Democrats stood and filibustered, offering a slew of amendments, including the rape and incest exceptions.

Sen. Doug Beck, a St. Louis Democrat, offered an amendment that would have specifically allowed 12-year-olds who became pregnant to receive abortions — a jab at Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican who suggested last year that children as young as 12 should be allowed to marry.

The push to prohibit funding to Planned Parenthood could also thwart attempts to reauthorize a series of crucial taxes that fund Missouri’s Medicaid system. The taxes expire later this year.

Hard-right senators are expected to attempt to push amendments that would bar funding to Planned Parenthood — a repeat of a fight that occurred in 2021 and forced lawmakers into a special session.

The Planned Parenthood funding debate marked the first time the Senate has formally considered a bill since session began last month. The chamber has been gridlocked by infighting among Republicans, largely caused by a hard-right group of senators who feel that GOP leadership is not conservative enough.

The group, the Missouri Freedom Caucus, has vowed to halt nearly all action in the chamber until senators agree to take up a bill that would make it more difficult for voters to amend the state constitution through the initiative petition process. Some Republicans view the effort as a way to stymie any upcoming vote to overturn the abortion ban.

One of the leaders of the group, Sen. Bill Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican running for governor, told reporters that he expected senators to debate a bill that would overhaul the state’s initiative petition process early next week, potentially on Tuesday. While Republicans have wanted to overhaul the process for years and make amending the state constitution more difficult, the effort has taken on new urgency amid the abortion rights campaign.

“We’re gonna push on that next week — the top issue that we’re going to be bringing up,” said Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican who chairs the hard-right caucus.

But, Rizzo, the Independence Democrat, pointed to the Republican vote against exceptions to for rape and incest as an example of the importance of the state’s initiative petition process.

“Every Republican in the room voted against exceptions for victims of rape and incest. That’s how extreme they’ve become,” he said. “That is why the only recourse for everyday Missourians is through the initiative petition process.”