Pro-choice groups are renewing their complaints over how conservative lawmakers are handling an investigation into Planned Parenthood.
Alison Dreith, executive director of NARAL Pro Choice Missouri, and Laura Swinford, who heads Progress Missouri, called out the Missouri Senate for its continued review of Planned Parenthood records during a media conference call Thursday.
Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, approved Republican Sens. Kurt Schaefer, Columbia, and Eric Schmitt, Glendale, to look over the files.
Attorney General Chris Koster earlier this year analyzed the same time period covered by the files and found no wrongdoing by the reproductive health clinic.
The Sanctity of Life Committee, chaired by Schaefer, was created a year ago after the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion organization, released hidden camera videos showing Planned Parenthood officials allegedly trying to sell body parts from aborted fetuses.
Schaefer and Schmitt had 60 days to look over the records, according to an agreement between the Senate and Planned Parenthood. More than 30 days have passed.
"I think we need to see what's in the documents," Schaefer said in an April press conference, after the agreement was reached but before the documents were delivered. "I think all along a big aspect of what the Committee on the Sanctity of Life was looking at is how are aborted babies disposed of at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis?
"Again - and I'll go back to the fact that the first video that came out in those undercover videos - at a minute 51 (1:51) in that first video, the St. Louis Planned Parenthood is specifically mentioned, which obviously was a huge aspect of why we put the committee together."
Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City-based attorney representing Planned Parenthood, is holding the files in his office for the senators to review. The Senate Republicans' attorney, Todd Scott, has started his review of the records, but Schaefer and Schmitt have not, Dreith said.
"If they really were concerned about what those documents said, they would take the time to go review them as well as answer the press' calls for questions and interviews," she said.
During the 2016 legislative session, the committee subpoenaed Mary Kogut, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, and Dr. James Miller, owner of Pathology Services Inc., to testify on their abortion services and procedures.
There is a dispute about whether the committee also subpoenaed medical records, which are private under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Two major effects of the committee, Dreith said, were the discontinuation of Medicaid reimbursement to Planned Parenthood and the scrutinization over the clinic for protecting medical records.
University of Missouri administration also testified in a Sanctity of Life Committee hearing last year about its relationship with Planned Parenthood's Columbia clinic.
The university later denied "refer-and-follow" privileges to Colleen McNicholas, a doctor who performed abortions at Planned Parenthood in Columbia, which resulted in the clinic suspending the service.
Dreith said Schaefer's run for attorney general is motivating his Planned Parenthood "witch hunt."
"Now we have Sen. Kurt Schaefer trying to out-conservative his primary opponent, Josh Hawley, and say that he single-handily brought down abortions in Columbia," Dreith said. "We know he did this through political fear and bullying at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and that this is, for him, trying to win his primary race for the attorney general."
In the conference call, Amy Guinn, a single mother living in Boone County, said abortion was her only option when she became pregnant two years ago.
Working 70-90 hours per week at three jobs, she said, she supported herself and her two children.
But she had been on bed-rest with each child, at three and six months into her pregnancies.
Fearing a third pregnancy also would end with doctor-ordered bed rest - and without getting any public assistance - Guinn said she worried about how to pay the bills and feed her children.
"It's extremely hard to take care of children when you're not receiving enough help, or any help at all," Guinn said. "So abortive care needs to be kept in place in Missouri for women who genuinely feel that that is the best option for them."