Hey Missouri. It’s Me Again, AngryBlackLady. We Need to Talk About Your ‘Born Alive’ Bill. |
So hey, Missouri. It’s me. AngryBlackLady. You probably knew I was coming.
I’ve been writing open letters to you since 2015. I’ve written five of these now, if you’re counting, which I am, because I have a spreadsheet, not to mention a deep and abiding sense of exhaustion. In 2015, I asked if you were drinking enough water because you kept introducing overlapping bills all designed to do one thing: end abortion in your state.
To be honest, the seemingly endless attempts to strip Missourians of bodily autonomy was kind of obsessive. In 2019, I asked if you needed a wellness check. In 2025, I asked if you were engaging in any activities that spark joy besides ending abortion access for your own constituents.
And now here we are again, and I’m starting to think we need to skip the wellness check and go straight to an intervention.
Missouri. (I can still call you that, right? After all, “Anti-choice Republicans in Missouri” is such a mouthful.)
So, Missouri. Honey. Your voters passed Amendment 3 to protect abortion access in November 2024. They put the right to legal abortion up to the point of fetal viability directly into your state constitution. And how did you respond? By introducing a ballot initiative that would undo Amendment 3 in the hopes that Missouri voters didn’t actually say what they said when they enshrined legal abortion into the state constitution.
Maybe they made an oopsie! Better send it back to the ballot box so voters can pinky swear that they actually want to be able to make decisions about their own bodies (up to a point). Voters will head to the ballot box again in November 2026 to let you know whether they really meant it.
Not satisfied with that effort, you spent this legislative session trying to pass a “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” and on May 13, 2026 you succeeded. I suppose I could congratulate you on your fortuitousness. This is, like, the fifth time you’ve tried to pass this bill. And you finally did it! So hooray, I guess.
But still. Have a seat. There are some things I need to explain to you about pregnancy, birth, health care, and human rights. Again.
Infanticide is already illegal
The premise of every “born alive” bill ever introduced—and there have been dozens of them, Missouri, including yours—is that abortion providers are out here delivering live infants and then killing them. Just wantonly murdering newborns. In clinics. In hospitals.
This is not happening. It has never happened.........