When St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed a bill allocating federal funds to out-of-state abortion expenses last week, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt promptly filed a lawsuit against the city.
St. Louis’s “Reproductive Equity Fund” taps into $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funding, dedicating $1 million specifically to providing logistical support for abortion, “including but not limited to the funding of childcare, transportation, and other logistical support needs.” Missouri’s trigger law banned abortions in all cases except for medical emergencies, making it a class B felony to perform one.
Attorney General Schmitt, who is currently running for Senate in the Aug. 2 Republican primary, called the fund “blatantly illegal.” Missouri law explicitly bars the use of public funds for “performing or assisting an abortion” and “encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.”
Jones, in her comments to the St. Louis American, equated his lawsuit to a “bully” tactic.
“I will not back down when our opponents threaten, bully, or demean our safety,” Jones said. “Especially the attorney general, who is more concerned with chasing clout than healthcare.”
“The Reproductive Equity Fund will empower St. Louisans to make the best healthcare decisions for themselves and their communities while addressing the disparities exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis,” she said.
The supposed justification for spending COVID funds on abortion is that the pandemic “strained access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.” Though it may be the worst misuse of the $350 billion in ARPA funding dispersed among state and local governments, it is certainly not the first. Senate Republicans voiced concerns about the “lack of transparency on uses of the funds” in early June, noting questionable uses such as $12 million in baseball stadium renovations in New York, $400 million for building new prisons in Alabama, and millions in various cities to fund tourism marketing campaigns. St. Louis received $498 million total from the fund, $249 million of which it has already appropriated to various programs.
Many companies have similarly promised to cover travel expenses for employees seeking abortions out of state. Funneling private money into helping women kill their babies is reprehensible, but using taxpayer dollars to do it is far worse. St. Louis’s “Reproductive Equity Fund” is a gross misuse of federal funding that should be stopped.
