Abortion legislation could get greater attention in the 2016 legislative session, after a summer of legislative hearings stemming from videos alleging the illegal sale of fetal tissue after abortions.
Representative Mike Moon hopes so. He plans to again propose a bill he believes could make abortions illegal in Missouri by repealing a section of state law that recognizes life as beginning at conception.
It would remove from a section of Missouri law that recognizes life as beginning at conception a section that specifies that section is subject to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, as well as provisions in the U.S. Constitution and elsewhere in state law or the state constitution.
Moon says the language recognizing the statutes it subject to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court is “the problem.”
“People say that legal abortion is the law of the land but when I ask which law was passed, they can’t cite one, and the reason is there was not. There was no law passed,” Moon told Missourinet.
He contends, then, that if the provision recognizing U.S. Supreme Court decisions would be removed, abortion would again be illegal under Missouri law.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling, invalidated state bans on abortion.
Moon’s proposal has the support of at least one anti-abortion organization, “Missourians for the Unborn,” who has made the passage of his bill a key tenet of its platform.
Moon filed the bill in this year’s session but it got no attention. He questions whether the state House’s Republican majority is living up to the party’s pro-life stance.
“I’ve asked some who say they’re Republicans if they support [the party’s pro-life position], and many times I don’t get an answer,” said Moon, “and that’s frustrating to me.”
Moon plans to pre-file the bill. The filing of legislation begins December 1.