Abortion supporters claim a Missouri Republican’s plan to create a registry referring pregnant mothers to adoption resources invades their privacy — even if it’s voluntary.
Republican Missouri State Rep. Phil Amato’s “Save MO Babies Act” would create a state database that pregnant women may sign up for in order to match with potential adoptive parents who pass screening processes. Democrats and activists who argued that pro-life laws exacerbate “cycles of poverty” among other ills claim it’s “disturbing” and “extreme” to allow such a program.
“It is the policy of this state and its agencies to implement a system to reduce the number of preventable abortions in Missouri by assisting an expectant mother in identifying and accessing existing resources for daily needs and prenatal care,” the bill states. The goal is to save “children who would otherwise be aborted,” it says.
The bill also allows the state to share information on the mothers with law enforcement inside and outside of Missouri if it is needed “to protect an expectant mother, father, or child from abuse or neglect or to assist such agency in providing child welfare services.”
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“Are you serious!?” reads a Monday social media post from the Missouri House Democratic Caucus criticizing the bill. “We have to imagine even conservative Missourians would be horrified by this idea.”
“The elected Republicans in Jefferson City need to hear from us loud and often that this is an extreme government overreach and a creepy, draconian measure aimed at scaring our fellow citizens,” the post said.
State Rep. Amato did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The bill now sits in the Missouri House Children and Families Committee and has no co-sponsors.
The author of Amato’s bill is local adoption attorney Gerard Harms, who testified to lawmakers on Tuesday that it could serve as “e-Harmony for babies,” the St. Louis Post reported. “The intent is not, be it any stretch of the imagination, to go out and data-mine,” he said.
“The flippant and disturbing remarks heard today about establishing ‘e-Harmony for babies’ encouraging prospective families to shop for children should ring alarm bells for everyone,” the lobbying group Abortion Action Missouri said in a statement to the Independent. The group said the bill shows that “no pregnant person, no child is off the table for anti-abortion politicians to exploit in order to further their own power and control over our bodies, families, and futures.”
The Missouri Democratic Party previously complained in a January statement that abortion bans are “cruel” because women struggle to find “the care they need for a healthy pregnancy.” Abortion Action Missouri has likewise argued that unplanned pregnancies can trap women “in unsafe relationships” and “cycles of poverty” — without addressing adoption as an alternative solution.
Missouri voters passed an amendment in November that made abortion legal until “fetal viability,” with exceptions “to protect the life or health of the woman” at any stage of pregnancy.
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