March 12, 2021
This year, Missouri’s annual lobby was held online. Steve Rupp, Missouri Right to Life’s President, opened the lobby day with celebratory remarks on how the state of Missouri is down to nearly 39 abortions a year!
This is huge for the “Show me State,” as we know that Missouri is rapidly on its way to becoming abortion free. There is one Planned Parenthood left in the entire state and they perform about 3 abortions a month. Susan Klein, Executive Director for Missouri Right to Life, discussed the “Show me Healthy Babies,” program which is a program that supports pregnant and parenting moms.
After listening to some of the speakers, students from St. Louis Community College, Lindenwood, and Maryville University did their lobbying. We advocated for HB – 155 , the “Born -Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” which protects human life from a failed abortion. We also advocated for SB 450, which is the bill that required reporting of a “Heartbeat Detection Test” and prevents an abortion if a heartbeat his detected. This bill was sponsored by Representative Mike Moon.
My students and I called about 60 Senators and Representatives advocating for these strong pro-life bills. Most of the leaders we called were pro-life and we thanked them for using their place of leadership to protect life. For the pro-choice Senators and Representatives, we simply thanked them for serving the great state of Missouri and also asked that they would protect the vulnerable by supporting the above bills. Although the lobby day was very different from last year, my students still felt like they made an impact with the conversation that they had with the Senators and Representatives that we called.
Guest post by Jacinta Florence, Students for Life of America’s Missouri and Arkansas Regional Coordinator.
