With less than six weeks left in the legislative session, Missouri House Republicans scrapped their latest of several iterations of an abortion ban in search of a new solution.
The newest proposed constitutional amendment got its first committee hearing Wednesday night with a bill filed by Republican state Rep. Ed Lewis of Moberly presented to the House Children and Families Committee by its new handler, state Rep. Brian Seitz, a Branson Republican.
Seitz told his colleagues the legislation, a response to Missouri becoming the first state to overturn an abortion ban, “will help foster a culture of life in Missouri, one that all our citizens can support.”
The amended version of the bill, which passed out of committee after two hours of debate, was not yet available on the House website as of Wednesday evening.
But Seitz in his presentation of the legislation said it was nearly identical to a bill passed out of the same committee in late March.
That legislation sought to outlaw abortion with exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal anomalies. It would also legalize abortions up to 12 weeks gestation for survivors of rape and incest, but only if first reported to police, a requirement that remains highly-criticized by survivors and their advocates.
The ballot language for the latest legislation was also not yet public Wednesday evening, but the bill it was based on was criticized for excluding any direct reference to an abortion ban. Instead it sought to ask if voters wanted to “guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages,” a right that is already guaranteed in the Missouri Constitution.
That amendment also would have asked if Missourians wanted to “ensure women’s safety during abortion,” “ensure parental consent for minors,” allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape and incest” and “protect children from gender transitions.”
Seitz said while his morals don’t align with the rape and incest exception, he believes that adding the allowance up until the end of the first trimester would be more favorable for voters.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City and herself a sexual assault survivor, asked Seitz to imagine someone’s body being violated only to have a reminder of that violence through nine months of pregnancy.
House Minority Leader Ashley Aune of Kansas City, surrounded by members of the Democratic caucus, speaks at news conference after the 2025 legislative session opened (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).“Could your child have cured cancer?” Seitz asked as the many in the crowd audibly groaned.
Aune brushed aside his question, calling it “an insane hypothetical.”
Seitz on multiple occasions said he believes the abortion-rights amendment — which was approved by voters and protects the procedure up until the point of fetal viability — actually legalized the procedure up until the moment of birth.
Aune called his assertion a misrepresentation of the amendment, saying he wasn’t taking into consideration those diagnosed with “devastating fetal anomalies” late in pregnancy.
“If you think that there are abortions on demand at nine months, shame on you for thinking so little of women,” she said.
State Rep. Ann Kelley, a Republican from Lamar, said she agreed with Seitz that the abortion-rights amendment’s language allowing abortion at any point if “needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person” was too ambiguous.
Seitz questioned whether a person who is nine months pregnant could be “in very much pain, as I’m sure most women are when they’re about to give birth, and declare, ‘I want to have an abortion. I want to have an abortion. I just can’t take it. I cannot go through with it. I cannot have a baby. I cannot financially care for the baby. My boyfriend’s disappeared. I want an abortion.’ I think Amendment 3 opened that door to that possibility at nine months.”
Up until this week, House Republicans had used a bill filed by state Rep. Melanie Stinnett as the vehicle for their proposed abortion ban amendment. After that legislation underwent three major revisions, including one that was not approved by the bill’s handler, it was seemingly scrapped before it got to the full House for a final vote.
Seitz added Wednesday that unlike the last iteration of Stinnett’s bill, which sought to put stricter parameters on abortion, his legislation had the support of Missouri Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group.
Susan Klein with Missouri Right to Life testified in support of the new legislation Wednesday, calling it a true effort to “repeal and replace Amendment 3.”
In November, just shy of 52% of Missourians voted to legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability through a citizen-led ballot initiative.
Missouri anti-abortion elected officials have since vowed to either restrict or repeal the reproductive rights amendment, known as Amendment 3, arguing that Missourians didn’t understand what they were voting on when they checked “yes” at the ballot box.
A flurry of legislation followed, much of which has been criticized as an attempt to overturn the will of the people and a waste of taxpayer’s time and money.
But Republicans are adamant that an abortion ban would succeed on a statewide ballot.
“When this legislation passes, we’ll know the will of the voters,” Seitz said Wednesday. “And it will pass.”
Despite abortion becoming legal nearly four months ago, only a handful of procedural abortions have been performed across three Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.
The delay is in part due to multiple ongoing court cases around Amendment 3, including a lawsuit in which a judge in February agreed to strike down several of the state’s abortion regulations, citing them as “discriminatory” and allowing clinics to restart the procedure. But the judge kept in place a current regulation mandating that only physicians perform the procedure.
Medication abortions remain inaccessible.
Seitz said his amendment seeks to restore a number of these abortion regulations, adding that it would guarantee only licensed physicians be able to perform abortions.
“We are not in a place and time where people are randomly hanging out a shingle,” said state Rep. Pattie Mansur, a Democrat from Kansas City.
“Not yet,” Seitz responded.
State Rep. Holly Jones, a Republican from Eureka who chairs the committee, only permitted five people to testify in support and five in opposition on Wednesday, citing a hearing on abortion earlier this year that lasted four hours. The rest of those in attendance were permitted only to state their name and whether they were for or against the legislation.
“While you have come this way, you do get to speak,” Jones said. “But we are not going to spend and belabor the points of either side all evening.”
After four people spoke in favor of the bill and more than 55 people voiced their opposition, Jones asked that the hearing room be cleared when Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, called the hearing a “sham,” criticizing Jones for limiting how many people were allowed time to testify and then led abortion-rights advocates in a chant.
“I’ve been in this building five years. This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” state Rep. Marlene Terry, a Democrat from St. Louis, told Jones after she cleared the public out of the hearing. “ … This is their house. You had them put out of this room.”
“The hell I need to take a vote,” Terry said as she left her seat before the hearing concluded.
The amended version of the legislation passed out of committee 11 to 3.