Missouri lawmaker withdraws legislation allowing homicide charges for abortions

The Republican state lawmaker on Wednesday pulled the proposed legislation, which would have allowed homicide prosecutions against women who kill their unborn babies and those who help them do so. Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats attacked the legislation, called the “Abolition of Abortion in Missouri Act,” after it was proposed. Its sponsor, State Rep. Bob Titus, told the Kansas City Star that the media mischaracterized the proposal.

What would the law have done, specifically? Missouri has already passed a law protecting unborn babies in almost every instance, allowing only some exceptions. It is one of 14 states that have done so. Titus’ proposed law would have protected unborn lives the same as any other human life in the state. A companion bill in the state  senate still awaits consideration. Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri, says women who have undergone the trauma of aborting their child “deserve support after abortion, not condemnation.”

Dig deeper: Read Adeline A. Allen’s column in WORLD Opinions about how more babies are being born now that would have otherwise been aborted without the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling.