Biden campaign rips ‘cruel and draconian’ MO bills allowing murder charges in abortion cases

The Biden campaign came out Monday hammering Missouri Republicans for proposed legislation in the state House and Senate that would allow murder charges to be brought against women who have had abortions, linking the proposal to the legacy of former President Donald Trump.

Julie Chávez Rodríguez, President Joe Biden’s campaign manager, told McClatchy and the Kansas City Star that the bills were “the latest in a series of cruel and draconian laws” emerging across the United States in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade last year, a decision made possible after Trump installed three justices to the high court.

“When Donald Trump said there should be ‘some sort of punishment’ for women who seek out reproductive care, this is what he had in mind,” Chávez Rodríguez said. “Extreme MAGA Republicans in Missouri are following Trump’s lead by renewing a push to charge women who attempt to receive reproductive health care with murder.”

“This is just the latest in a series of cruel and draconian laws proposed by Republicans made possible in the year and a half since Trump’s Supreme Court justices voted to overturn Roe,” she said. “And make no mistake: Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans have no plans to stop here. If they have their way, every woman in this country could be facing punishment for seeking out the care they need under a national abortion ban. That’s what will be on the ballot next November.”

Vice President Kamala Harris also weighed in on social media later on Monday.

“This is outrageous,” Harris said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “If Republican extremists have their way, women in our country could be prosecuted for getting an abortion. That’s what’s on the ballot in 2024.”

The response comes as part of Biden campaign’s overarching effort to tie every abortion ban or restriction back to Trump – a strategy that has secured state and local electoral victories for Democrats in otherwise hostile political environments over the past two years.

The pair of Missouri bills would give fetuses the same rights as human beings, which would allow for criminal charges to be filed against anyone who gets an abortion, helps someone get an abortion or provides abortion care in the state, which implemented a near-total ban on the procedure after last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

A pair of Republicans, state Sen. Mike Moon from Ash Grove and state Rep. Bob Titus from Billings, pre-filed the bills last week ahead of next year’s legislative session, which begins next month.

Neither lawmaker responded to calls and requests for comment on Monday. Titus told The Star last week that “if you’re going to treat babies as humans and people then the penalties for taking an innocent life should be commensurate with that.”

“That a mother would take her own child’s life to me is unconscionable,” he said. “I’m not a mother but I have ten children and I value them greatly. It’s inconceivable that a mother would knowingly do that. If it’s not an act of murder, then what is it?”

The bills, both called the “Abolition of Abortion in Missouri Act,” come as abortion rights supporters in Missouri are trying to get a measure restoring some form of abortion on the state ballot in 2024. The legislation indicates that some Missouri Republicans are pushing forward on expanding the state’s near-total ban on abortion in the next legislative session even as women and medical providers have spent the last year grappling with the ban.

Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, an abortion rights advocacy group, said in a statement on Monday that her group has “seen these attacks before” and it wasn’t “enough to call out politicians on the campaign trail.”

“We call on the Biden administration to protect pregnant Missourians, and everyone, from criminalization before bills like these open the floodgates,” she said.

Schwarz said that pregnant people have and are now increasingly “facing prosecution for their pregnancy outcomes and options, even for experiencing miscarriage.”

The bills do not state explicitly whether getting an abortion in another state would be illegal. The procedure is still available in bordering Kansas and Illinois.

While Missouri has shifted to the right in recent elections, abortion rights remain popular. Polling conducted last year by Saint Louis University and British pollster YouGov showed that a majority of Missourians were in favor of some level of legal abortion and disagreed with the abortion ban.

“These bills highlight what we already know to be true, anti-abortion lawmakers in Missouri harbor extreme views that have never been about the health and safety of those they serve, but rather control over a person’s body and choices,” Anamarie Rebori-Simmons, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement on Monday.

The Republican-led legislation will face an uphill battle. One of the state’s top anti-abortion groups, Missouri Right to Life, opposed a nearly identical bill last session.

However, the bills’ introduction in both chambers of the General Assembly signals that the issue of abortion rights and the state’s ban on the procedure will likely be major flashpoints during the legislative session, which begins Jan. 3. While Republicans will fight to expand or keep the ban in place, Democrats have pre-filed bills to repeal the ban or to explicitly state that it does not affect access to birth control.

The Republican bills do allow for a “duress” defense if a woman is charged with murder for getting an abortion. They also do not allow for criminal charges for “lawful” medical procedures performed by a doctor and if an abortion is performed to save the patient’s life or if a doctor accidentally aborts a fetus during a life-saving procedure.