The Quickie: Missouri Ballot Campaign Submits Signatures, Clears Major Milestone

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: Missouri’s ballot campaign hits a major milestone, FL and AZ abortion bans affect Latina patients, and a state fights round up.

MISSOURI BALLOT CAMPAIGN SUBMITS SIGNATURES, CLEARS MAJOR MILESTONE: On Friday, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom cleared its greatest milestone yet, submitting more than 380,000 voter signatures to the Secretary of State’s office. The campaign had to collect signatures from 8% of voters in six of eight congressional districts — more than 171,000 signatures total. If the signatures are validated, the measure to restore abortion rights in Missouri would appear on November’s ballot. 

“The success of this campaign sends a clear message: Missourians trust patients to make the health care decisions that are best for their health and wellbeing,” Dr. Iman Alsaden, Chief Medical Officer, Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Advisor to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said in a campaign statement. “Anti-abortion politicians take note: my patients’ lives are not yours to control.”

At a Missourians for Constitutional Freedom rally in front of the Missouri State Capitol, Sam Hawickhorst, who identified as receiving care at a Planned Parenthood health center in Missouri in 2015, told the crowd, “Abortion is healthcare. Abortion is normal. And those who have had and will have abortions deserve dignity and respect. “This amendment, this movement, is about who makes personal decisions for yourself and your family.”

Read more from the Missouri Independent.  

FLORIDA AND ARIZONA ABORTION BANS DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECT THE LATINO COMMUNITY: As Florida’s 6-week abortion ban and Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban have a devastating impact on patients’ access to care, Latina patients in both states are left vulnerable. Florida has the third-largest Latino population in the country, while Arizona is home to the sixth-largest Latino population. The 19th* reports that Latinas are the largest group of women of color to be impacted by current and potential abortion bans. Analysis from the National Partnership for Women & Families found that 43% of all Latinas of reproductive age live in states with abortion restrictions.

Lupe Rodríguez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, explains how Latinas are left disproportionately impacted by abortion bans, saying, “In many of these places, including Florida and Arizona, inequities for Latinas in terms of health care access were already really great…Latinos have some of the highest rates of not being insured, and therefore, of not getting preventative health care of many kinds, including preventative reproductive health care. We know that these laws are very, very potentially harmful to the community.”

Read more in the 19th*.

STATE FIGHTS ROUND UP: Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect on May 1; Arizona’s legislature repealed the Civil War-era total abortion ban, however, without an emergency effective date allowing the repeal to go into effect, there is a chance the ban could be in place even into the beginning of 2025. 

• Arizona: On Friday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a repeal of the state’s Civil War-era total abortion ban. While the repeal is a step forward for access, the total ban could still force providers to pause abortion care this summer. Because the legislature refused to add an emergency clause, the repeal bill cannot take effect until 90 days after the legislature adjourns. While the legislature has a budget deadline of June 30, their session could drag on and even be purposefully drawn out to delay the repeal’s effective date. Planned Parenthood Arizona has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to act quickly and issue a stay that would delay the ban’s implementation until after the repeal takes effect. 
• Florida: On May 1, Florida’s six-week abortion ban went into effect, leaving a significant region of the country without meaningful access to abortion care. Florida has been a critical access point for abortion since the fall of Roe, with more than 84,000 patients receiving abortion care in 2023. Combined with the state’s two-trip requirement and forced 24-hour delay, the ban — which cuts off access before many people know they are pregnant — will keep thousands of people from accessing care. 
• Louisiana: The Louisiana Senate is considering SB 276, a bill that would add mifepristone and misoprostol to the list of controlled dangerous substances in the state, creating penalties of up to 5  years of prison time for those possessing the drugs, with an exception for a pregnant person with the drugs “for her own consumption.” 
• Indiana: On May 1, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled that a 2017 Indiana law that prohibited health care providers from giving certain information about abortion to young people violates the First Amendment. The law prevented doctors and other licensed health care professionals from informing minors that they could obtain an abortion in another state where parental consent is not required. 
• Kansas: The Kansas legislature sustained Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of SB 233, a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The ban will not become law. The legislature did, however, override Governor Kelly’s vetoes of HB 2749 and HB 2436, both of which aim to restrict abortion in the state, by requiring invasive questioning and reporting about each patient’s “reasons” for seeking care and creating a new felony “abortion coercion” offense, respectively. The legislature also overrode Governor Kelly’s veto of HB 2465, which creates a tax credit for donations made to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. All three bills will become law. 
• South Carolina: On May 2, a Richland County circuit court heard arguments in a legal challenge to South Carolina’s early abortion ban that seeks to clarify the current uncertainty in when the law applies based on its definition of a “fetal heartbeat,” which has left abortion providers with no choice but to assume that the ban applies after approximately six weeks of pregnancy – before many people even know they are pregnant.