Missouri AG spends $167,000 in state funds on abortion PSA ahead of November vote

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office is airing a “women’s health PSA” warning patients about abortion clinics less than three months before voters decide whether to reinstate a near-total abortion ban Hanaway supports.

The video cost $167,000 in state funds and was paid for through the office’s Merchandising Practices Revolving Fund, said Stephanie Whitaker, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office. She confirmed that it was distributed through the Missouri Broadcasters Association, which serves more than 350 radio and TV stations statewide, and will air across the state through Sept. 30, as KSDK-TV first reported Tuesday.

State law allows money in the Merchandising Practices Revolving Fund to be used for consumer education and advocacy programs.

The PSA, which was also posted to the office’s YouTube account in mid-August, references a June ruling by Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang that struck down dozens of challenged abortion regulations as unconstitutional under the reproductive rights amendment passed in 2024. Hanaway is appealing that ruling. 

“For years, our laws protected women by requiring clinics to obtain licenses, pass basic health inspections, and have emergency protocols. But Planned Parenthood sued, trying to block safety requirements that protect women,” Dr. Katy Liu, a family medicine doctor based in Missouri, says in the video. “Today, abortion clinics in Missouri are not required to meet the same basic medical standards as other healthcare facilities. Before making any medical decision, ask questions. Make sure your care meets the level of protection every patient deserves.”

In a statement, Whitaker said the video script was written by the attorney general’s office with help from the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs, an anti-abortion medical organization that also connected the office with Liu.

“As the chief legal officer for the State of Missouri, the Attorney General’s Office is concerned about the current status of women’s health laws,”  Whitaker said. “She believes it is important to provide clear information to Missourians.”

The video was published less than three months before Missourians will be asked to vote on Amendment 3, a proposal placed on the ballot by lawmakers that asks Missourians if they want to repeal the 2024 reproductive rights amendment and reinstate a near-total abortion ban with limited exceptions for medical emergencies and for survivors of rape or incest in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

The PSA does not mention Amendment 3 or the November election. But its timing and message have drawn criticism from abortion-rights advocates, particularly because Hanaway has endorsed the amendment.

Representatives with Stop the Ban, the campaign opposing Amendment 3, accused Hanaway of being among anti-abortion politicians “using our tax dollars to bankroll their latest attempt to overturn the will of the voters and ban abortion.” 

“This misuse and abuse of our hard-earned money is the latest in a string of dirty tricks to try to take power away from us,” the organization said in a statement provided to The Independent. “But Missourians are seeing right through them.”

The PSA is among just six videos posted to the attorney general’s office’s YouTube page. The others are directed at identity theft and human trafficking.

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In 2022, Missouri became the first state to enact a trigger law banning abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 2024, Missourians voted to overturn the ban, protecting the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability. 

After the narrow defeat in 2024, anti-abortion leaders re-organized under the campaign name Her Health, Her Future, which now serves as the lead campaign organizing to pass the abortion ban amendment.

Hanaway is among Missouri’s top officials who endorsed Amendment 3. The messaging in the attorney general’s video also closely resembles arguments made by the campaign supporting the amendment.

“Missouri’s anti-women laws have removed health and safety standards for women’s health clinics,” the campaign’s website reads. 

Amendment 3 would also place a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors into the state constitution. It is already illegal in state law. 

Gov. Mike Kehoe has endorsed Amendment 3, and his wife, Claudia Kehoe, serves as the campaign’s treasurer.

In June, after 18 months of legal battles, both medication and procedural abortion access returned to Missouri with the circuit court’s ruling. 

Among the abortion laws left in place by the judge was a requirement that patients meet with a doctor in person before being prescribed medication abortion and a requirement that only physicians can perform abortions. 

But Zhang struck down most of the laws challenged by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri as unconstitutional and unnecessary, including  special licensing requirements for abortion providers, a 72-hour waiting period between an initial consultation and an abortion, hospital admitting privileges for physicians performing abortions and a requirement for physicians prescribing medication abortions to have a state-approved complication plan.

These and dozens of other abortion regulations were litigated over a 10-day-long trial in January in Kansas City. Lawyers with the attorney general’s office argued during the trial that the laws, most of which were enacted by the legislature in recent decades, were “basic, common sense requirements” necessary to protect patients.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU argued the laws weren’t designed to protect women, but rather to ensure abortion was “regulated out of existence” by creating logistical nightmares for patients and ethical dilemmas for providers without making procedures safer.

A few decades ago, prior to the passage of most of Missouri’s abortion restrictions and 2022 ban, thousands of abortions were performed in the state each year. Current data shows several thousand Missourians still accessed abortion in 2024 with the ban still in place, but had to travel to Illinois or Kansas to do so.