In a massive victory for abortion rights supporters, a Missouri judge on Friday blocked a licensing requirement for abortion clinics that providers said prevented them from offering the procedure.
Planned Parenthood announced shortly after the judge’s ruling that its clinics would once again perform abortions in Missouri.
“Abortion services are resuming in Missouri!” Planned Parenthood Great Plains, an affiliate that operates in Missouri, announced on Facebook. “We are excited to soon offer care at select Missouri health centers, ensuring safe, compassionate and essential reproductive healthcare for those who need it.”
Margot Riphagen, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, another Missouri affiliate, added in a statement: “Our health center staff are quickly readying to restart this critical care in the coming days.”
Abortions have been virtually banned in Missouri since 2022, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and permitted much of the nation’s south and midwest regions to outlaw the procedure. But in November, Missouri residents voted to pass a ballot measure adding abortion rights to the state constitution.
The ACLU of Missouri, Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers then sued Missouri to strike down a bevy of anti-abortion laws.
The Jackson county circuit court judge Jerri Zhang agreed to halt a number of those laws in December. But Zhang left in place a requirement that abortion clinics be licensed by the Missouri department of health and senior services – a policy that Planned Parenthood said in court papers was “medically unnecessary”.
While that requirement was in place, the reproductive healthcare giant said its clinics could not perform abortions in Missouri.
“It was so weaponized when we had to get licensure from the state. The state would delay,” Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, told the Guardian in December. “They would force us to litigate to get a license.”
Planned Parenthood asked Zhang to reconsider the ruling. In her Friday order, Zhang declared that the licensing requirement was “discriminatory”.
“It does not treat services provided in abortion facilities the same as other types of similarly situated healthcare, including miscarriage care,” Zhang wrote.
The Missouri attorney general is likely to appeal Zhang’s ruling.
