Last Friday, I was maced by a St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer. Along with people of all backgrounds, we were in the streets protesting a court decision that undermined the right of communities to live free from the fear of bodily harm by law enforcement. Yet as I was still washing burning chemicals from my eyes, just one block away a different court was issuing another ruling undermining our right to bodily autonomy.
That court, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, moved to make it harder for women across Missouri to access basic reproductive healthcare by ordering a temporary stay on issuing licenses to abortion clinics across the state. By the time the day was over, one thing was painfully clear: The basic rights of Missourians were under attack from all sides by the very justice system designed to protect us.
Recovering at home, the news that the 8th Circuit had temporarily prohibited the state from allowing new abortion clinics to open was a slap in the face that hurt worse than any pepper spray.
Missouri is already one of the most restrictive states in the country when it comes to the challenges women face in accessing abortion. We even recently endured a seven-week-long abortion special session called by Gov. Eric Greitens over the summer dedicated entirely to restricting our reproductive freedom. So when the Supreme Court ruled that laws like those already on the books in Missouri unconstitutionally restrict a woman’s right to access abortion, hope was given to the 1.5 million women of reproductive age living across the state.
After doing away with these medically unnecessary regulations, clinics in Kansas City and Columbia were able to finally receive their license to start accepting patients, and Springfield and Joplin clinics were due to follow. Now, that progress has ground to a halt, and women across Missouri are faced with the continued prospect of having only one abortion clinic to serve the entire state.
The news of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court’s decision went mostly unnoticed as news coverage rightly focused on another failure of the courts to deliver justice. Earlier that same day, Judge Timothy Wilson found former police officer Jason Stockley “not guilty” of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith. For Missourians, the decision came as no surprise—the Black Lives Matter movement found its start in Missouri after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson went unpunished, sparking outrage that spread across the county. Even so, the explicit bias of the judge’s ruling in Friday’s case was like a rubber bullet to the gut of a community that is still deeply divided.
In Missouri, we are sadly no strangers to attacks on our bodily autonomy. Political leaders and their wealthy patrons continue to strengthen systems of oppression, whether they are taking the lives of Black citizens, unleashing chemical warfare in our streets, or dictating the private medical decisions of Missouri women.
The violation of these basic human rights are not isolated from one another. Missourians deserve the guarantee of safety during routine interactions with law enforcement, the right to make decisions about our own bodies, and the peace of mind knowing that our state leaders are fighting for our best interest. Instead, Gov. Greitens and his GOP allies have repeatedly pushed policies that do exactly the opposite.
Missouri should be a place where all people feel safe raising their family if, how, and when they want to. We should strive to be a place where every citizen feels supported by the communities we call home. This is the vision that drives us into the streets and inspires us to hold our leaders accountable when they betray our values.
Standing together, we must, and we will, continue to fight back against any threats to our common values.
Alison Dreith is executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri.
