Attorney General Bailey Fights To Reinstate Critical Health And Safety Protections For Missouri Women

July 7, 2025 4:59 pm

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Today, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that his Office has once again filed an appeal after a Jackson County Court issued a new preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of Missouri’s health and safety regulations for abortion facilities. This decision comes just weeks after the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously overturned a previous injunction in Comprehensive Health v. State of Missouri, upholding the state’s authority to enforce basic protections for women and the unborn.

“We respectfully but firmly disagree with the Court’s decision to once again block basic health and safety regulations, just weeks after the Supreme Court reinstated them,” said Attorney General Bailey. “These requirements were designed to ensure that women receive care in sanitary conditions from qualified professionals, with emergency safeguards in place. My Office has expeditiously appealed this ruling. Missouri will not stand idly by while the abortion industry seeks to strip away basic medical safeguards.”

Last month, the Missouri Supreme Court affirmed the state’s ability to enforce key health and safety protections at abortion facilities, provisions that activists and abortion providers have long sought to dismantle. However, as of July 3, those safeguards are once again blocked following a new preliminary injunction issued by a lower court judge in Jackson County. As a result, the following commonsense regulations are no longer in effect, placing women’s health and safety in serious jeopardy:

• Coerced Abortions: Missouri law prohibits abortion “unless and until the physician has obtained from the woman her voluntary and informed consent given freely and without coercion.” Although the Supreme Court recently reinstated this requirement, the new Jackson County injunction now prevents its enforcement, allowing abortion providers to bypass essential consent standards.
• Sterile Equipment and Clean Facilities: Missouri’s infection control rule, 19 CSR 30-30.060, mandates that abortion facilities meet the same cleanliness standards as surgical centers. Regulations against abortion providers’ use of moldy tools, unsanitized equipment, and other unsafe conditions that directly endanger patient health cannot be enforced with this new injunction.
• Emergency Plans for Complications: Abortion providers are required to maintain written emergency protocols to treat serious complications like hemorrhaging or sepsis. These safeguards are especially critical given that 1 in 9 women who take abortion pills face complications requiring emergency care. Yet under the current injunction, these emergency protections cannot be enforced.
• Ultrasound Right: Missouri law gives women the right to receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to see and hear the fetal heartbeat before an abortion. This protects informed consent and helps identify serious medical risks like ectopic pregnancies. Now, under the new injunction, abortion providers are free to deny this choice, pressuring women into irreversible decisions without access to vital medical information.

 

“These commonsense protections were put in place because of the past actions of abortion providers in Missouri: moldy equipment, falsified reports, and disregard for basic medical standards,” continued Attorney General Bailey. “The abortion industry has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted to police itself.”

Planned Parenthood in particular has a long and troubling history of noncompliance:

• In sworn testimony, two former medical directors admitted they knowingly failed to report complications for over a decade.
• In 2018, a Planned Parenthood facility in Columbia was shut down after inspectors discovered staff had been using mold-contaminated equipment on patients.

 

“We will continue to hold Planned Parenthood accountable, and we will always fight to protect women, children, and the rule of law,” concluded Attorney General Bailey. “We will fight this dangerous ruling in Court and continue to defend the health and safety of every Missouri woman.”