Biden rule seeks to protect women who travel for abortions. Missouri AG Bailey opposes it

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has signed onto a multi-state effort to push back on a rule from President Joe Biden’s administration designed to protect women who obtain abortions out of state.

But on Tuesday a spokesperson for Bailey said that the Republican’s office does not track women who leave the state for abortions or gender-affirming care and accused the president of pushing a false narrative.

“This is not about states needing access to medical information; it’s about halting Biden’s perpetuation of a false narrative and combating government overreach,” Bailey spokesperson Madeline Sieren told The Star in an email.

Sieren, in response to a follow up, said that Bailey’s office “does not keep track of Missouri residents who receive abortions in other states, nor do we plan to pursue legal action against mothers who leave the state to obtain abortions. Mothers are victims of the abortion industry.”

Bailey in June signed onto the letter from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch along with 17 other Republican attorneys general. The letter called on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to end a proposed rule change that would prevent states from using health information to investigate reproductive health care “that is sought, obtained, provided, or facilitated in a state where the health care is lawful and outside of the state where the investigation or proceeding is authorized,” according to a fact sheet on the proposal.

The proposed rule was aimed at strengthening protections for women who seek abortions outside of states such as Missouri where the procedure is almost entirely banned. While proposed rule is focused on abortion, the Republican attorneys general argued that it is broad enough to “advance radical transgender-policy goals.” Bailey’s office said Tuesday that it also does not keep track of people who leave the state for gender-affirming care.

State Rep. Emily Weber, a Kansas City Democrat, said in a text to The Star that Bailey should “read the letters he signs.”

“While the authors may frame the rule as government overreach, state governments often go much further than the feds when it comes to controlling the lives of private citizens,” Weber said.

The Republican attorneys general, in the letter, argued that the Biden administration was pushing a false narrative that states were “seeking to treat pregnant women as criminals or punish medical personnel who provide lifesaving care.”

The letter said the proposed rule “would unlawfully interfere with States’ authority to enforce their laws, and does not serve any legitimate need.”

The Biden administration, Weber said, was “working to prevent radical state law enforcement officials like Attorney General Bailey from encroaching into the lives of Missouri citizens who made the individual, personal decision to receive medical care in another state because Republicans in Missouri passed an inhumane abortion ban here with no exceptions for rape or incest.”

Bailey’s stance on the proposed rule came roughly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to abortion. The ruling triggered a law in Missouri that banned abortion in nearly all situations.

Missouri lawmakers have in recent years considered legislation designed to curtail out-of-state abortions but the proposals have not gained traction. In 2022, before the abortion ban triggered, then-state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican who is now in the state Senate, proposed a bill that would have made performing an abortion on a Missouri resident — or helping a Missouri resident get one — illegal.