Planned Parenthood

A Kansas City judge last week overturned a requirement that patients take the medication while a doctor is present.

Medication abortion will be available in Missouri for the first time since 2018 after a judge determined most of the state’s challenged abortion regulations are unconstitutional, including laws requiring hospital privileges, complication plans and special clinic licenses.

Missouri voters enshrined the right to an abortion in 2024, but several abortion restrictions remain state law. A Jackson County judge temporarily blocked those laws, and Planned Parenthood is now seeking to permanently strike those laws to ease abortion access.

Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang will preside over the two-week bench trial to determine whether Missouri's abortion restrictions violate the state's constitution.

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers will close its Rolla health center to in-person appointments at the start of the new year and transition all services to telehealth.

‘This is nothing more than an attempt to harass (Planned Parenthood) and should not be permitted by the court,’ attorneys for the clinics wrote in a court filing opposing the subpoena.

The Missouri Supreme Court is questioning whether it should be the tribunal to hear the appeal of a Jackson County decision blocking enforcement of most Missouri abortion laws and regulations.

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers Medical Director Margaret Baum said Tuesday the clinic had opened its books for patients to make abortion appointments starting next week.

The Missouri Supreme Court suspended abortion rights protected in the state constitution and sent the issue back to a Kansas City judge. But abortion services remain available at clinics on the Kansas side of the metro.

The Missouri Supreme Court handed down a ruling that struck down injunctions put in place last year by Jackson County judge Jerri Zhang, effectively re-instating the state's near-total abortion ban.