Reproductive rights

After the Missouri legislature voted to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements last year, Planned Parenthood sued. A judge concluded it was unconstitutional for the state to deny access to funds available to other health care providers, but the attorney general's office is appealing.

As pro-choice advocates push for more reproductive rights, Republicans in Missouri and Ohio are undertaking attempts to thwart those efforts.

States like Missouri that passed abortion bans after the reversal of Roe v. Wade are seeing a drop in applicants for OB-GYN residencies.

When a woman and her unborn son were killed in the course of her Missouri Department of Transportation job, her family sued for wrongful death — but the department argued they're shielded from liability becauseher fetus counts as an employee.

A first-of-its-kind federal investigation found that two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas put a pregnant woman's life in jeopardy and violated federal law by refusing to provide an emergency abortion when she experienced premature labor at 17 weeks.

The legislation bars individuals who are born without the ability to produce eggs for reproduction from using women’s restrooms, locker rooms and other gender-specific areas — and classifies intersex people as disabled. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill but the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature narrowly voted to override and put it into law.

Elevated Access recruits hobby pilots to fly abortion patients out of states with bans. They offer a window into the increasingly scrappy tactics of abortion rights groups in a post-Roe America.

Nurses in schools across Missouri say their students struggle to afford period products and have missed school because of periods. Now Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has $1 million to reimburse schools for menstrual hygiene products.

Backed by the group Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the measures would amend the Missouri Constitution to declare that the “government shall not infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” That would include childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion services, and miscarriage care.

Missouri’s brief falsely claims that medication abortions, which have been used for more than two decades and only rarely result in complications, “are much riskier than surgical abortions." Reproductive health experts have said the lawsuit is based on flawed evidence, selected studies and anecdotes.

The overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision just months ahead of its 50th anniversary has prompted many abortion providers — including in Kansas — to shift how they serve patients.

The National Women’s Law Center and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit Thursday in St. Louis Circuit Court on behalf of 13 faith leaders in Missouri. The lawsuit claims Missouri’s so-called trigger ban and other laws restricting abortion access violate residents’ religious freedom.