Missouri State Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman Proposes Banning Out-of-State Abortions For Missourians

[appalachiablue]

- Daily Kos, March 8, 2022. Ed.

In a grave slap in the face to women today on International Women’s Day, Missouri State Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R) proposed a bill that effectively bans Missourians from crossing out-of-state to get abortions (especially to Illinois & Kansas). Missourians who seek abortion services out-of-state could face lawsuits from private citizens, along with staffers & doctors at reproductive health clinics who help Missourians obtain abortions. Coleman is the same lawmaker who proposed a Texas SB8-style law for the Show-Me State & is running for the Missouri State Senate. This is part of her extremist anti-abortion crusade that she seeks to enact on Missourians as part of the right-wing war on abortion access.

- Caroline Kitchener at Washington Post:

- The pattern emerges whenever a Republican-led state imposes new restrictions on abortion: People seeking the procedure cross state lines to find treatment in places with less-restrictive laws. Now, a prominent antiabortion lawmaker in Missouri, from where thousands of residents have traveled to next-door Illinois to receive abortions since Missouri passed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws in 2019, believes she has found a solution.

An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after 6 weeks of pregnancy. Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee & are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives. [...]

The measure would target anyone even tangentially involved in an abortion performed on a Missouri resident, including the hotline staffers who make the appointments, the marketing representatives who advertise out-of-state clinics, & the Illinois and Kansas-based doctors who handle the procedure. Her amendment also would make it illegal to manufacture, transport, possess or distribute abortion pills in Missouri. - David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement: A far right Missouri state representative & pro-Trump acolyte is using a Texas vigilante legal theory in a novel manner to effectively ban women from leaving her state to obtain abortions in nearby Illinois – or any other state. State Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, who last year made headlines for wanting to name a portion of a highway after the disgraced former president, is filing a bill that allows anyone in the country to sue if a Missouri resident leaves the state to access abortion services...

- More + Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/8/2084770/-Missouri-State-Rep-Mary-Elizabeth-Coleman-proposes-banning-out-of-state-abortions-for-Missourians

[mitch96]

1. How are they (Missouri government) gonna know? A rat? nt

[appalachiablue]

3. Sure, and maybe a 'reward' as well..

[Deuxcents]

5. Yes..it's forcing women to go underground

Any woman seeking an abortion will not be able to seek help for fear of being exposed by a “rat” who is more interested in others’ business than their own by filing lawsuits hoping for monetary gain.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. The war on neighbors is launched

Any woman traveling out of state could potentially be reported. Tie them up for weeks providing paperwork, consulting lawyers. That's where this is headed in my view.

[appalachiablue]

4. THE WAR ON NEIGHBORS, I'm afraid you're right.

[mitch96]

7. Just like Nazi Germany and Communist China. Kids were ratting on their parents...uff nt

[bucolic_frolic]

11. It must be made clear to the public that they - themselves - can be targeted

Some creeps might get their jollies ratting out neighbors they don't like, but when it comes home to roost and makes their own lives miserable, they see the policy in a different light.

[Irish_Dem]

8. Mandatory pregnancy tests for women crossing state lines.

[slightlv]

6. A war on neighbors, maybe...

total war on women, absolutely. And make no mistake about it, this is religiously based. The dominionists will not be satisfied until they control every aspect of our lives. Reproductive health is just the first (and easiest for them) cog in the wheel. Expect credit in our names to be stripped; expect to fight, once again, for our right to vote. They actually do want us barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen at all times, subject to the whims of a man.. be it a father, a husband, brother, or some other male relative. Dominionists are every bit cut from the same cloth as the Taliban. Its just Sharia Law by another name.

[rustysgurl]

9. Another Missouri moron

As I said in a previous post, Missouri grows morons like a cash crop.

Anybody with a payment due at Rent-A-Center (and in rural MO there are plenty of them) is going to snitch on their neighbor to make a buck if this goes through. Sitting here in the KC area, we get MO news. Watching the drama next door would be entertaining and laughable if it wasn't so damned serious. Add in the b.s. from their Attorney General Eric Sch*itt and it makes for some pretty interesting viewing. The latest media blitz is Cancun Ted's commercials endorsing Sch*itt in his Senate run.

Lord am I glad I live in KS (it's only a little better, but it's better).

[Rebl2]

16. Yea-not much better

Your AG is as bad as MO’s.

[Demovictory9]

10. As i mentioned before, when abortion was illegal in Ireland pro lifers rode the ferries

Ferries that went to Britain..looking for young women to hassle..assuming they were on way to get abortion (some were).

I think Irelands abortion ban applied to the Irish woman..not just to where she got an abortion

[Skittles]

12. don't call them pro-life

they are anything BUT pro-life

[mitch96]

13. They are anti women..nt

[Samrob]

14. Where do these people come from?

This is impossible.

[fwvinson]

15. Keep an eye on the Republicans. The only people I have known to get an

abortion are Republicans.

[Rebl2]

17. I am

fairly sure if they pass this there will be lawsuits calling this bill illegal.