Pro-Choice Missouri

NIRH worked with Pro-Choice Missouri (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Missiouri) in 2019 to promote proactive reproductive health policy at the local level in St. Louis. Pro-Choice Missouri used the Local Reproductive Freedom Index as a framework for ensuring reproductive freedom in St. Louis, passing Board Bill 212. This policy will significantly reform the care for menstruating, pregnant, and parenting inmates by ensuring access to quality prenatal and postpartum health care, placing restrictions on the use of restraints, and requiring city jails to provide adequate period products. Pro-Choice Missouri also won passage of Resolution 225 in 2019, calling on state and national legislatures to protect abortion coverage in private and public insurances. Finally, Pro-Choice Missouri continued their work of building a base across the state through their Reproductive Freedom Listening Tour and hosted 13 Pro-Choice Power Hour events, featuring different coalition partners speaking on issues related to reproductive justice and expanding the community’s understanding of reproductive justice. In 2018, faced with a hostile anti-choice state legislature and governor, Pro-Choice Missouri worked to build a base of support in key cities across the state to invigorate supporters and advance proactive policies that protect reproductive freedom on the local level. Following the successful passage of their Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Ordinance in 2016, Pro-Choice Missouri worked with NIRH towards introduction and passage of proactive policies in multiple cities, including a clinic protection ordinance in St. Louis, paid leave in Columbia, and a reproductive health nondiscrimination ordinance in Kansas City, among others. With support from the National Institute, in 2011, the Pro-Choice Missouri launched investigations into CPCs in Columbia and St. Louis and published an investigative report on their findings.