Missouri TRAP Bill (HB 6)

HB 6 would amend laws relating to abortion facilities and medication abortion.

Medication Abortion

The bill would allow the Department of Health and Senior Services to adopt rules governing complication plans to ensure patients undergoing abortions induced by drugs or chemicals have access to safe and reliable care. Any rule, regulation, or standard adopted by the department must, at a minimum, require a follow-up visit.

Definitions

The bill would define certain terms as they relate to abortion services.

The bill would define “qualified professional” to mean:

[…]the physician who referred the woman to the physician who is to perform the abortion or to the advanced practice registered nurse in a collaborative practice arrangement with the physician performing the abortion.

The bill would define “abortion facility” to mean:

[…]any establishment operated for the purpose of performing or inducing any second- or third-trimester abortions or five or more first-trimester abortions and which does not provide accommodations for patients to stay more than 23 hours within the establishment.

TRAP

The bill would amend current Missouri law regulating health-care providers and ambulatory surgical centers to also include abortion facilities.

The bill allows the department to adopt separate rules to apply to ambulatory surgical centers and to apply to abortion facilities. Any rule that applies to an abortion facility shall, at minimum, be equal to any physical requirement of an ambulatory surgical center.

The bill would require an abortion facility to provide affirmative evidence that each person authorized to perform abortions is a physician currently licensed to practice in Missouri in order to receive a license to operate the facility.

The bill would require the department to make an unannounced on-site inspection of any abortion facility at least annually. The inspection must include:

• compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, including requirements that the facility maintain adequate staffing and equipment to respond to medical emergencies;
• compliance that all organs or tissue removed at the time of the abortion be submitted to a board certified pathologist;
• review of patient records to ensure that no documentation authorizes improper utilization or organs or tissue;
• compliance with prohibition on the use of public funds to perform or assist a prohibited abortion or to encourage a woman to have a prohibited abortion; and
• compliance with the statutory requirement that continuous physician services or registered professional nursing services be provided whenever a patient is in the facility.

Attorney General

The bill would grant the Attorney General power to have concurrent original jurisdiction throughout the state for actions for a violation of any:

• provision regulating abortion;
• state law regarding the use of public funds for an abortion; or
• state law which regulates an abortion facility or a person who performs an abortion.

Interference with Medical Assistance

The bill would create the offense of interference with medical assistance. A person commits the offense of interference with medical assistance if he or she, while working as an employee of an abortion facility:

• knowingly orders or requests medical personnel to deviate from any applicable standard of care or ordinary practice while providing medical assistance to a patient for reasons unrelated to the patient’s health or welfare; or
• knowingly attempts to prevent medical personnel from providing medical assistance to a patience in accordance with all applicable standards of care or ordinary practice for reasons unrelated to the patient’s health or welfare.

An offense of interference with medical assistance would be a class A misdemeanor.

Related Legislation

Similar to HB 3.

Similar to the attorney general provision found in SB 1.

STATUS

This bill was introduced during the 2017 special session.

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