St. Louis - Missouri was set Friday to become the first US state in half a century without abortion services unless a court steps in at the last moment to keep its sole remaining abortion clinic in operation.
While all may seem calm from the outside, Planned Parenthood is mobilising to keep the clinic it manages in service. "The state of women's health is an emergency and a nationwide crisis — and we need to respond with everything we've got," it said in a tweet. Missouri's Republican Governor Mike Parson recently welcomed a drop in the number of abortions from 20,000 to 3,000 in his state, which is home to six million people.
But some have refused, fearing they would be incriminated without knowing the accusations against them.The state is "weaponising the licensing and regulating process... They are trying to fine the line that Planned Parenthood won't cross," said M'Evie Mead, director of policy at the local Planned Parenthood chapter.
The states restricting abortion access have generally sought to roll back when the procedure is permitted, to as early as when a heartbeat is first detected -- around six weeks of gestation when many women do not yet know they are pregnant.