abortion

The city's Planned Parenthood clinic began offering medication abortion this week, ending a stretch that started in October 2005, when Springfield Healthcare Center closed after three decades in business and left southwest Missouri without an abortion provider.

The Springfield location is the fifth Planned Parenthood clinic to begin offering the medication after a June court decision struck down several abortion regulations as unconstitutional, opening the door to in-clinic medication abortion access again in Missouri for the first time since 2018. Medication abortion appointments at the clinic can be made up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.

Abortion has been legal in Missouri since November 2024, when voters approved a reproductive-rights amendment protecting abortion up to the point of fetal viability.

The first measure, House Bill 5295, is an initiative from the governor’s office and would create the Reproductive Health Privacy Act. It would require the separation of information about abortion services or diagnoses of gender dysphoria from a patient’s digital medical records if a patient chooses.

Access to those records would be restricted for out-of-state entities and could only be shared in certain circumstances and with a patient’s consent. The information would not be deleted, only shielded.

Senate lawmakers on Saturday passed the bill with a vote of 38-19. The House passed the bill Sunday with a vote of 73-39.

Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that he looks forward to signing the bill “to fortify the protections around choice and consent, and that anyone receiving safe, legal abortion care here will not be criminalized.”