Abortion appointments resume at Columbia Planned Parenthood clinic

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Abortion appointments resumed Monday at Columbia's Planned Parenthood clinic four months after voters enshrined reproductive rights into the Missouri Constitution.

Four patients went to appointments at the clinic Monday, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson said. They were the first abortion appointments at the clinic since 2018.

Appointments are also available at the midtown Kansas City clinic.

Both the Columbia and midtown KC clinics will only offer procedural, or surgical, abortion care for now as Planned Parenthood is working through a compliance process with the state for medication abortion, the spokesperson said last week.

Several anti-abortion protesters stood outside the fence that wraps around the clinic property Monday.

A Jackson County judge last month struck down state restrictions that had kept abortions from going forward in Missouri after voters approved Amendment 3 in November. The amendment makes reproductive health care a right under the Missouri Constitution.

Amendment 3 allows for abortions up to fetal viability.

Some of the rules the judge deemed unreasonable or unconstitutional include one that requires patients to meet with the same clinic physician in two in-person visits at least 72 hours apart and another that leaves physicians open to lawsuits for malpractice if they perform or induce an abortion due to the unborn baby's gender or if they have down syndrome.

Republicans in the General Assembly are continuing efforts to stop abortions in Missouri.