(07-06-2022 12:59 PM)Rice93 Wrote:  This is interesting. It is HuffPost (I know, I know) but because we all agree that it is good to hear about the law from lawyers... here is a healthcare lawyer who deals with this issue directly.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/health-ca...9334ed64fe

Specifically interesting was the issue that Tanq (and maybe Ham?) brought up that doctors have had to deal with these restrictions for the past 30 years so maybe they know how to handle this.

Quote:In some ways, the abortion laws in the state have not changed. In fact, for Missouri hospitals that receive public funds, there has been a complete ban on performing abortions except in the case of a medical emergency for more than 10 years. Those facilities have already had a taste of what it means to work through abortion laws that are complicated and unclear. The difference now is that the Missouri “trigger ban” assigns criminal penalties to physicians (and possibly to women) who perform (or cause) an abortion outside of a “medical emergency.” The criminal penalties are felony charges that carry jail time, fines and potential loss of medical license. The trigger ban went into effect on Friday, June 24, the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

This is also interesting:

Quote:Every time an abortion is performed in a Missouri facility, the provider is required to submit a Report of Induced Termination of Pregnancy to the state. The information in the report is ostensibly used for public health purposes. However, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is clear that the reports can be used for other purposes.

My expectation is that these reports will be reviewed for potential prosecution. Under the Missouri statute, the physician must offer an affirmative defense in order to prove that the termination of pregnancy was, indeed, a medical emergency. That is, the statute shifts the burden for criminal prosecution from “innocent until proven guilty,” to “guilty until proven innocent.”

The Missouri attorney general offered an informal statement through his spokesperson that he does not interpret the ban as affecting any kind of birth control. However, the statement is not legally binding, and any local prosecutor is free to interpret the statute how they see fit.

The bolded statement is wrong, and a bit irresponsible. The prosecutor must ALWAYS prove the elements of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt -- that has not changed. What has changed is the definition of what constitutes a crime -- which is what happens just about every time a new criminal statute of any kind is enacted.