Connect with us

Politics

Missouri abortion-rights petition draws criticism for rape reporting requirement

Published

10 months ago

on

[ad_1]


When Trish Mitchell got an abortion three decades ago in Missouri, she didn’t tell the doctor her pregnancy was a result of sexual assault.She couldn’t bring herself to.It would be years before she told anyone that she had been raped.“Speaking for myself, it was literally almost impossible,” said Mitchell, who was 21 at the time of the assault. “I wasn’t able to talk about what happened to me for many, many years.”When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion, a near total ban on the procedure went into effect in Missouri. It doesn’t include exceptions for victims of rape like Mitchell.An initiative petition effort to add an exemption for rape victims to Missouri’s abortion ban is officially underway, alongside provisions that would prohibit the government from interfering with access to an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and provide immunity from prosecution for women who receive abortions and for those who help them.But the proposed constitutional amendment would require women seeking an abortion following a rape to report the assault to a crisis hotline, an idea that has drawn criticism from some survivors and advocates who worry it will be a barrier to accessing care.“If that’s what’s required, then I say yes, it’s better than telling someone ‘no, you can’t make this decision about your own body,’” Mitchell said. “But at the same time, I really wish they would talk with people who’ve had that experience and understand the amount of trauma that they actually go through before they even arrive at the decision to have an abortion.”Reporting requirementThe initiative petition campaign is being led by Jamie Corley, a longtime Republican congressional staffer who formed a 501c4 nonprofit in June to jumpstart the effort.When crafting the proposal, Corley and her team at the Missouri Women and Family Research Fund decided a reporting element was necessary to establish a qualifying event for the rape exception. She believes it also makes for a stronger ballot initiative. The group has until May to garner enough signatures to get the proposed initiative on the ballot.Corley said she studied reporting requirements in other states, including Florida, where victims have to provide proof of a police report or restraining order. But she felt that was too “onerous,” since there are myriad reasons survivors may not report an assault to police.“Our intention is to give crime victims access to care,” Corley said of the crisis hotline requirement, which she said is unique from any other state.She pointed to 2019 numbers from the Missouri Rights of Victims of Sexual Assault Task Force which showed more than three times as many people reached out to a crisis hotline as reported sexual assaults to police.As she sees it, the reporting can be done confidentiality, anonymously, via text, call or email, and done locally or through national groups. It can be as simple as writing “I am a survivor of sexual assault,” to meet the reporting requirement, she said.But Corley hopes it would also provide access to care for survivors that they might not have known about previously.Hotlines and how they workDozens of crisis hotlines are operated by victim agencies across Missouri. Many are 24/7 and don’t require survivors to share their identity. All are voluntary.National hotlines are also plentiful. For example, the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline, run by the Rape, Abuse & Incest Network, is confidential and does not even record the caller’s full phone number.Hotlines provide survivors a space to process what they are going through with an advocate who is trained to listen. From there, the advocate suggest information and services that could be helpful to the survivor, said Matthew Huffman, a spokesman for the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.Huffman’s group has not taken a position on any of the initiative petitions at this point.“I’m very hesitant to ever say that a survivor should have to make a decision in order to qualify for another service,” Huffman said of Corley’s proposal, adding that he also has concerns about asking someone to relive the trauma of a sexual assault. “It’s important that we are able to preserve the intent of what a hotline is, so that there isn’t a chilling effect where survivors feel like they would be uncomfortable calling a hotline for any reason.”No one would be required to tell the story of their assault, Corley said, only required to report that it happened.It can also be dangerous to call a hotline, Huffman said, as some survivors fear being found out by their abuser. During the pandemic, hotline calls were down in many states as victims remained stuck at home with abusers, unable to get help as easily.Corley said if there are concerns about calling a hotline, those same concerns would exist in making the abortion appointment in the first place.Huffman said he does see a benefit to the proposal, in that it could be a path to bodily autonomy for survivors.“These conversations and these efforts are important for us to be having, but I think we also have to be cautious about how they aren’t actually implemented,” he said. “And so I take a very pragmatic “both/and” approach where we can see benefits, but we can also see risks.”

Trish Mitchell, of Kansas City, was raped when she was 21. When she found out she was pregnant, she sought out an abortion. This provided photo was taken a few months before the assault, in the early 1990s.

Survivors’ perspectivesMitchell was a young mother with two boys when she was raped on a first date.She learned she was pregnant 12 weeks after the assault. Mitchell was already in survival mode, trying to stay present for her boys despite the rape playing on repeat in her head.“I was very young and didn’t know how to begin to understand what happened to me,” she said.Mitchell, who comes from a “very religious” upbringing, said the decision to seek out abortion care was met with much prayer and consideration. Calling a hotline was the last thing on her mind. Even if it was, Mitchell said did not have the mental or emotional capacity at the time to do so.Mitchell has worked with the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault. While she agrees calling a hotline is recommended and can be helpful, survivors should be able to seek those services on their own timeline.Contacting a hotline is not as cut and dry as it seems on paper, she said. After her assault, Mitchell said she waded through guilt, shame and embarrassment, and that reaching out to a hotline would have been extremely taxing.“Even to make a quick call to say, ‘hey by the way, I got raped and I need abortion care,’ it just feels so impersonal and uncaring,” Mitchell said.After she was raped 30 years ago, Taylor Hirth said calling a rape crisis center was the furthest thing from her mind.“This requirement adds one more thing to the extensive to-do list that further traumatizes survivors of sexual violence when they are just trying to move on with their lives,” said Hirth, a survivor and advocate who has occasionally written columns for The Independant and lives in the Kansas City area.While Hirth said she will take any “scraps of bodily autonomy the government is willing to offer me,” she would rather do without the requirement.“While I’m grateful for any attempt at improved access to abortion, inherent in the fight for reproductive rights is the belief in the bodily autonomy of the person seeking an abortion,” she said, later adding: “This is just one more unnecessary expectation.”Trojan horse?While Corley has settled on an initiative to move forward with, 11 more expansive abortion-rights amendment proposals filed in March by St. Louis physician Anna Fitz-James remain in limbo.Corley’s initiative has been met with criticism from both sides of the abortion debate, including from groups who oppose any abortion exclusions and from groups that oppose any limitations to abortion.Emily Wales, Planned Parenthood Great Plains’ CEO and president, said Corley’s ballot initiative reinforces stigma around abortion by allowing the government to declare what is a “good abortion versus a bad abortion.”Planned Parenthood has not yet taken a public position on any of the proposed initiative petitions.“At the end of the day,” she said, “what it does is have non-physicians sitting in a position of determining what an individual’s private healthcare should be.”She remains skeptical that other abortion restrictions in place that have driven providers out of the state will allow providers to reasonably return to Missouri. But if they did, she argued the reporting requirement could affect a patient’s experience.“This type of reporting reporting requirements doesn’t do anything but further restrict the rights of the individual who has already been violated,” Wales said. “It is deeply upsetting to me to read this and to hear that from somebody who thinks they are advocating for abortion access or individual rights.”Both Wales and Huffman raised questions about how the government would maintain patient and provider confidentiality.“I have a real concern about how those conversations which are intended to be confidential for a reason, end up being documented,” Huffman said.“We’ve seen the state be really irresponsible when it comes to patient information when it comes to tracking periods and patient data. I don’t want to give the government any more reason to be watching Missourians private lives,” Wales added, referencing a 2019 incident in which the state’s then health director, Randall Williams, testified that the state monitored personal information of Planned Parenthood patients, including women’s menstrual cycles, with the goal of identifying who had failed abortions. The patients’ names were not included.Missourians deserve better, Wales said.“This is not the moment for something is better than nothing,” she said.Corley said to get an abortion in Missouri before the ban, some level of reporting was always required. But she emphasized privacy would always be respected.“Just like Planned Parenthood tries to make it as easy as possible with their confidential online portals to make an appointment, and confidential phone lines to make an appointment, we have the same amount of respect and understanding for patient privacy,” Corley said.Her biggest priority, Corley said, is in getting access to survivors as quickly as possible. Her proposal is not some sort of “Trojan horse to get reporting requirements in place.”“Survivors have no access right now,” Corley said. “And so to sit on the sidelines and complain about ballot initiatives, without offering your own real solution is disrespectful to sexual assault survivors.”This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent, part of the States Newsroom.

[ad_2]

Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Politics

Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

Published

1 month ago

on

August 29, 2024

By

[ad_1]


A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

/

St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

Published

1 month ago

on

August 29, 2024

By

[ad_1]


Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

[ad_2]

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

Published

1 month ago

on

August 29, 2024

By

[ad_1]


Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

/

Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

[ad_2]

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending