That’s not exactly accurate - the Missouri law does not exempt the termination of an ectopic pregnancy from the definition of abortion :
(a) The act of using or prescribing any instrument, device, medicine, drug, or any other means or substance with the intent to destroy the life of an embryo or fetus in his or her mother’s womb; or
(b) The intentional termination of the pregnancy of a mother by using or prescribing any instrument, device, medicine, drug, or other means or substance with an intention other than to increase the probability of a live birth or to remove a dead unborn child;
ETA (b) does not mention “womb”
but in a separate section that will become effective if Roe v Wade is overturned goes on to say
- Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no abortion shall be performed or induced upon a woman, except in cases of medical emergency. Any person who knowingly performs or induces an abortion of an unborn child in violation of this subsection shall be guilty of a class B felony, as well as subject to suspension or revocation of his or her professional license by his or her professional licensing board. A woman upon whom an abortion is performed or induced in violation of this subsection shall not be prosecuted for a conspiracy to violate the provisions of this subsection.
The definition for “medical emergency” includes an ectopic pregnancy, so terminating an ectopic pregnancy is defined as an abortion. But it will not be prohibited when that new law takes effect. There’s also a part where only a physician can perform an abortion- and a physician terminating an ectopic pregnancy would therefore be legal even if it was a medication abortion as this new bill only applies to abortions that are in violation of state or federal law.
So in putting this whole mess together , it seems like this new “trafficking” law is intended to prevent anyone other than a physician from providing the medication for a medical abortion - which makes sense because two of the sections the bill amends ( 338.270, and 338.337) are in the title regulating pharmacists.
It’s not unreasonable to want to prevent non-physicians from providing abortion inducing medication to women with ectopic pregnancies - but this particular bill is badly written, and has parts that make no sense. Bumping it up to a Class A felony makes a little bit of sense for an ectopic pregnancy - but doing so for handing over the pills ( or device-what device are they even talking about?) in a car or within public housing doesn’t make any sense at all.