Ask any pro-choice advocate if they were surprised by the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they’ll most likely say no.

Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice and an abortion rights advocate, began to “mourn the loss of Roe immediately following the election of Donald Trump.” Dr. Erin King — executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois — says access to abortion has been nearly nonexistent for years, even without a Supreme Court ruling.

For decades, the state’s predominantly conservative legislature has dissolved the state’s pool of abortion providers. Thirty years ago, the state had 29 abortion clinics, compared to the lone survivor operating in the Central West End today. And from 2020 to 2021, the number of abortions performed in Missouri plummeted from 1,471 to 179, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services…

[Continue Reading]