Lawsuit Filed To Block Anti-Abortion Ballot Initiative in Missouri

Mary Hickey, a St. Louis woman that is represented by lawyers for Planned Parenthood in Missouri, filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking to prevent a petition drive to place an anti-abortion initiative on the November 2008 Missouri ballot.

The lawsuit argues that if enacted, the initiative would “render virtually all abortions unlawful,” and thus violate a woman’s constitutional right to obtain abortion care.

The initiative’s sponsor is the Elliot Institute, an out-of-state organization based in Springfield, IL. In 2006, the same organization unsuccessfully tried to put a proposal against stem-cell research on Missouri’s ballot.