Case: Rev. Blackmon v. Missouri

On January 19, 2023, a group of religious leaders who support abortion rights filed this lawsuit in the Circuit Court of St. Louis City challenging the state’s Total Abortion Ban (H.B. 126), Gestational Age Bans (H.B. 126), Reason Ban (H.B. 126), 72-Hour Delay (H.B. 1307), Same-Physician Requirement (S.B. 5), Medication Abortion Restrictions (S.B. 5), and Concurrent Original Jurisdiction Provision (S.B. 5). 

Plaintiffs sued the State of Missouri, including the Governor and the Attorney General, the prosecuting attorneys from five Missouri counties, the Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, and the President, Secretary, and Members of the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts (“the Board”). In the lawsuit, the religious leaders argued that lawmakers had openly invoked their religious beliefs while drafting the challenged laws and thereby imposed those beliefs on others who don’t share them. The religious leaders asserted that by doing so, the laws violated the Missouri Constitution’s Establishment Clauses (Article I, Sections 5, 6, and 7), which deal with the separation of religion and government. One plaintiff sued based on the alleged risk of harm she faced as a woman of reproductive age, and the rest sued in their capacity as Missouri taxpayers. 

Represented by the National Women's Law Center, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and private counsel, the group of religious leaders sought (1) a permanent injunction prohibiting Missouri from enforcing the challenged abortion laws and their implementing regulations, (2) a declaratory judgment stating that the challenged abortion laws violated Article I, Sections 5, 6, and 7 of the Missouri Constitution, (3) equitable remedy of recoupment to the State of all monies expended in connection with the challenged abortion laws, and (4) attorneys’ fees and costs. This case was assigned to Judge Jason M. Sengheiser. 

On February 28, 2023, the prosecuting attorneys of four counties filed a motion to dismiss and on March 9, State of Missouri, Missouri Governor, Missouri Attorney General and the Board’s filed a separate motion to dismiss. On March 27, plaintiffs filed their first amended petition for declaratory and injunctive relief, adding a 14th clergy plaintiff to the lawsuit. In response, on April 3, the same four prosecuting attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the amended petition and, on April 6, the State of Missouri, the Missouri Governor, the Missouri Attorney General and the Board filed another motion to dismiss, too. 

The trial court held a hearing on defendants’ motions to dismiss on June 13. The same day, the defendant prosecuting attorney of Jackson County, who had not filed a motion to dismiss, filed a cross-claim petition for declaratory judgment against the State of Missouri and the Missouri Attorney General seeking declaratory relief concerning the constitutional validity of the state laws criminalizing abortion. The cross-claimant argued that the laws were unconstitutional. 

On June 30, 2023, the trial court granted defendants’ State of Missouri, Missouri Governor, Missouri Attorney General and the Board’s motion to dismiss in part. In the order, the court dismissed plaintiffs’ challenges to the Gestational Age Regulations, the Reason Ban, the 72-Hour Delay and Same Physician Requirements. The court explained that, because these regulations affected only elective abortions and because the Total Ban prohibited all elective abortions in Missouri, plaintiffs’ claims against these regulations were not ripe. It denied defendants’ motion to dismiss against plaintiffs’ remaining claims. In addition, the court held that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged taxpayer standing, and that the plaintiff who had alleged threatened injury had met her burden to confer standing and had a ripe claim.

In a separate order on the same day, the court granted the defendant prosecuting attorneys’ motion to dismiss. Missouri courts do not enjoin enforcement of criminal statute unless the criminal law is unconstitutional or otherwise invalid and attempted enforcement would directly invade a property right causing irreparable harm. The court reasoned that plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege such an exception. At that time, only the prosecuting attorneys in Jackson County and the City of St. Louis remained in the case.  

The next few months of litigation focused on Jackson County prosecuting attorney’s cross-claim petition and plaintiffs’ claims against the Circuit Attorney for St. Louis. On July 17, defendants State of Missouri, Missouri Governor, and the Board filed a motion to dismiss the cross-claimant’s petition. The court held a hearing on the motion to dismiss on September 6, 2023. That same day, the Circuit Attorney for St. Louis filed a motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ first amended petition. On September 25, the trial court granted the Circuit Attorney’s motion to dismiss for the same reasons given in the June 30 judgment regarding the four prosecuting attorneys. Four days later, on September 29, the court granted the motion to dismiss the cross-claimant’s petition, ruling that the cross-claimant had not established standing, because she had not shown she faced threatened or actual injury, and that her claims were not ripe for judicial determination. 

During that period, on September 20, 2023, Defendants State of Missouri, Missouri Governor, and the Board filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Throughout the next few months, the parties engaged in briefing and discovery in regards to this motion.

On November 16, the Jackson County prosecuting attorney filed a notice of appeal to the state supreme court. The Missouri Supreme Court dismissed the appeal as being premature, as there had not yet been a final judgment on all of the claims. 

The trial court issued an order granting defendants’ motion for judgment on the pleadings on June 14, 2024, holding that the challenged provisions did not violate the Missouri Constitution. At this time, the claims remaining before the court were plaintiffs’ claims challenging the Total Abortion Ban, the Medication Abortion Restrictions, and the Concurrent Original Jurisdiction Provision. The order addressed these challenged provisions, as well as several ancillary provisions that the court stated were implicated by the challenges. In its order, the court held that individual comments by legislators regarding their religious motivations in enacting the provisions should be given little, if any, consideration when determining the provisions’ constitutional validity; that the language “Almighty God is the author of life” and reference to a “Creator” in the challenged laws do not violate the Establishment Clauses; that the challenged provisions’ determination that life begins at conception is not a strictly religious belief; and that the requirements are consistent with the state’s historical regulation of abortion. 

The next month, on July 12, plaintiffs filed a motion to amend the judgment. Plaintiffs’ argued that the judgment referenced statutory provisions that they had not challenged and, in relation to these, the judgment was an advisory opinion. Accordingly, plaintiffs requested that the trial court strike or modify the applicable language in the judgment. On July 16, plaintiffs filed a motion to remove one of the named plaintiffs who had moved out of Missouri, and the trial court granted this request two days later. 

On August 1, 2024, the Jackson County prosecuting attorney filed a notice of appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. 

The trial court granted plaintiffs’ motion to amend judgment on August 13, 2024, thereby vacating the June 14 order and entering an amended judgment. The order did not explain the court’s reasoning. 

On August 22, plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court. Plaintiffs appealed the June 30, 2023  and September 25, 2023 decisions dismissing the claims against all but one of the prosecuting attorneys; the June 30, 2023 order dismissing several of plaintiffs’ claims; and the August 13, 2024 Amended Judgment dismissing the remaining claims. The Court accepted the appeal and a docket number was issued on September 17. 

On October 28, plaintiffs’ filed a request for final judgment as to the Jackson County prosecuting attorney, the sole remaining defendant in the action, so that plaintiffs could proceed with their appeal to the state supreme court. Plaintiffs proposed that their first amendment petition against the remaining defendant be dismissed. 

As of November 17, 2024, the case is ongoing.