Abortion Report: Missouri

Department of Health Changing Rules on reporting abortions; comment period open

It’s late at night and I was about to go to bed when I stumbled upon this proposed rule change on page 1593 of the Missouri Register, Vol. 47 No. 21, Dated November 1, 2022:

It’s page 25 of the PDF.

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Now, I found this because I was glancing at the Secretary of State’s proposed rule change about libraries. But this …

1. It was the Induced Termination of Pregnancy report. This changes this to the Abortion Report.

   1. Abortions, in Missouri, are

      1. (a) The act of using or prescribing any instrument, device, medicine, drug, or any other means or substance with the intent to destroy the life of an embryo or fetus in his or her mother's womb; or

      2. (b)  The intentional termination of the pregnancy of a mother by using or prescribing any instrument, device, medicine, drug, or other means or substance with an intention other than to increase the probability of a live birth or to remove a dead unborn child;

   2. This makes it clear that this is for any abortion, “with the intent to destroy” or “with an intention other than to increase the probability of a live birth or to remove a dead unborn child.” This would include, for example, ectopic pregnancies.

2. It requires physician certification of why the pregnant person sought the abortion.

3. It requires physician certification that there was a “medical emergency” as defined by law (not medicine).

4. It wants to know if the patient is a veteran. (Why would it need that information?)

You can comment within 30 days of November 1, 2022.

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UPDATE 11/16/22:

This post has received more attention than I expected, and I wanted to provide some clarity about what current law is.

1. The rule does not clarify the definition of “medical emergency”. DHSS was asked to clarify the law, and in July, they said they would not provide further clarification. This rule adds nothing to the definition of “Medical Emergency”.

2. 188.052.1 RSMo states, An individual abortion report for each abortion performed or induced upon a woman shall be completed by the physician who performed or induced the abortion.  Abortion reports shall include, but not be limited to, a certification that the physician does not have any knowledge that the woman sought the abortion solely because of a prenatal diagnosis, test, or screening indicating Down Syndrome or the potential of Down Syndrome in the unborn child and a certification that the physician does not have any knowledge that the woman sought the abortion solely because of the sex or race of the unborn child.

3. The report goes into a patient’s medical file, as per 188.052.5 RSMo.

4. Also, all tissue removed from the abortion must go to a pathologist, who submits his own report to DHSS. The department matches up the reports, and if they don’t match, there could be an unscheduled inspection of the hospital. 188.047 RSMo.

Comments on 19 CSR 10-15.010 can be e-mailed to Mindy Laughlin, Deputy Director of the Division of Community and Public Health, at Mindy.Laughlin@health.mo.gov