Legislature Snubs Pro-life Bill

May 16, 2008, JEFFERSON CITY, MO –  Even with a majority of legislators elected on pro-life platforms, the leading anti-abortion bill of the 2008 legislative session died in the Senate on the last day of the 2008 legislative session.

HB 1831, sponsored by Rep. Bob Onder (R-Lake St. Louis), would have made it a crime to threaten to fire a pregnant woman, take away her college scholarship, assault, abuse, threaten or stalk a woman to coerce her into getting an abortion against her will.

Senate leadership, watered down the bill, seeking to appease pro-abortion legislators by removing provisions that prohibit coercion and left only provisions that are already the established law in other states.

Some pro-life senators felt they had to negotiate with pro-abortion legislators because other senators refused to support the necessary parliamentary procedures to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. While those senators claim to be pro-life, none were willing to ensure that anti-abortion legislation would be approved in the 2008 legislative session.

Other grounds that a person could be found guilty for coercing an abortion had already been removed from the bill before the bill had been passed by the House. Among the grounds removed included refusing to pay child support, threatening to remove custody of the child or other children of the mother, withdrawing support or denying housing to the pregnant woman, all done with the intention to coerce the woman to have an abortion.

HB 1831 came to the Senate on April 21, 2008, was heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee and quickly voted out of committee for debate on the Senate floor. For the three weeks thereafter, however, Senate leadership negotiated with pro-abortion senators to avoid protracted debate on the Senate floor.

HB 1831 had received about two and a half hours of floor debate in the House but received no floor debate in the Senate. However, on other issues of higher priority to legislators, the Senate spent two and a half days debating tax credits for Bombardier, a Canadian aerospace manufacturer, and even spent Senate floor time debating whether the ice cream cone should be the official dessert of the state of Missouri.

“Pro-life citizens of this state will not be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the table of legislative leadership,” said Deacon Larry Weber, Executive Director of the Missouri Catholic Conference. “The right to life is so basic that legislators need to do all in their power in order to protect it.”

Governor Matt Blunt, while claiming to be pro-life, also chose to make pro-life legislation a lower priority and instead issued a press release on Wednesday, May 14, 2008, that threatened legislators with a special session if legislators did not pass legislation giving out property tax handouts and anti-immigration legislation that punishes undocumented workers in Missouri. Nowhere in the governor’s press release was anti-abortion legislation mentioned.

“There is something seriously wrong when pro-life legislators and governor decide that property tax issues are more important than protecting women coerced into having abortions against their will,” stated Deacon Weber. “It is obvious that protection of human life was NOT a priority for the governor or the Missouri legislature.”

In addition, the legislature voted to earmark taxpayer dollars from the state budget to fund human life science research. The Missouri Catholic Conference and other pro-life organizations advocated removal of all human life sciences research funding from the state budget, pointing out that the Missouri Constitution, as amended by the 2006 Amendment 2, does not allow the legislature to discriminate between ethical human life science research such as adult stem cell research, and unethical research such as embryonic stem cell experiments or human cloning, in funding human life sciences research.

“It is extremely frustrating the majority of the members of this General Assembly call themselves pro-life yet have so miserably failed to address the issue of coerced abortion in Missouri,” said Deacon Weber.

Missouri citizens can view how their state representative or state senator voted on key MCC legislation by visiting the MCC’s website at www.mocatholic.org and clicking on MCC key legislative votes.