The Missouri House of Representatives gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to a measure that would place a constitutional amendment on the state’s ballot giving full legal rights to “unborn human children at every stage of biological development.” Such personhood amendments not only aim to criminalize nearly all abortions, but also jeopardize some common forms of birth control.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Mike Moon, previously introduced a similar measure that he called the “All Lives Matter Act” and has said he approaches the abortion issue as “a former embryo.”
Moon recently made national headlines when he called for a special legislative session to stop “the potential Islamization of Missouri.” In 2014, he joined an attempt to impeach the state’s Democratic governor, Jay Nixon, for allowing gay couples married in other states to file joint tax returns.
But Moon is far from alone. One of his fellow Republican state legislators, Rep. Tila Hubrecht, reportedly defended the personhood measure’s lack of an exception for rape survivors by saying that pregnancy can be the “silver lining” of a rape:
Democratic opponents in the House said if enshrined in the Missouri Constitution, the measure would ban abortion, including in cases of rape, incest and in which the life of the mother is at risk. Democrats also said it could bar contraception, which some Republicans disputed.
"Do you believe that it's just or compassionate to force a woman who's been raped to have the child of the man who raped her?" said Kansas City Democratic Rep. Lauren Arthur.
Dexter Republican Rep. Tila Hubrecht said she asked her doctor "to save the baby, no matter the cost" before she received an emergency cesarean section. She also said she's met people conceived by rape and that "there's a reason for their life."
"Sometimes bad things happen, and they're horrible things," she said. "But sometimes God can give us a silver lining through the birth of a child."
