Anna Spoerre
Reporter, Missouri IndependentAnna Spoerre covers reproductive health care for The Missouri Independent. A graduate of Southern Illinois University, she most recently worked at the Kansas City Star where she focused on storytelling that put people at the center of wider issues. Before that she was a courts reporter for the Des Moines Register.
-
In November, Missourians will be asked whether they want to repeal the abortion rights amendment they approved in 2024 and reinstate an abortion ban. Unions and reproductive rights groups already worked together to defeat Amendments 4 and 5 in the August election. -
The latest effort to expand insurance coverage to include IVF costs for military families died this year after Senate Republicans, including Missouri’s Eric Schmitt, voted to remove it from a defense spending bill. -
Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis restarted procedural abortions in 2025. All four clinics, along with the Planned Parenthood in Gladstone, also offer medication abortion. -
The Stop the Ban campaign has raised more than $6.5 million. The leading political action committee on the other side, called Her Health, Her Future PAC, has raised just over $1 million as of last week. -
A Planned Parenthood clinic in Springfield began providing medication abortion Monday while also expanding pain management for IUD placements and biopsies. It's the fifth clinic to begin offering the service after a June court decision struck down Missouri's restrictions. -
This is the first time that Planned Parenthood's Gladstone clinic has ever offered medication abortion, after a judge struck down Missouri's restrictions on mifepristone. Officials said that appointments "filled quickly." -
The November measure would essentially reinstate Missouri's abortion ban by repealing the reproductive rights amendment voters approved in 2024. It would also add a constitutional ban on gender-affirming care for minors. -
If signed by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, the bill will allow anyone in Missouri who is prescribed oral contraceptives to pick up a 12-month supply at one time, beginning in 2027, rather than visiting the pharmacy every few months for refills. -
The original bill would have allowed civil lawsuits against anyone involved in an unlawful abortion, including self-induced abortions -
Although Missouri voters restored abortion rights in 2024, multiple legal, political and court battles over the common abortion medication mifepristone continue to run through the state. Hawley is taking aim at the drug through proposed legislation and calling for federal investigations.
