Missouri caught tracking Planned Parenthood patients’ periods

Protesters hold signs as they rally in support of Planned Parenthood and pro-choice and to protest a state decision that would effectively halt abortions by revoking the center's license to perform the procedure, near the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, May 30, 2019. 

As states move toward ever-more-restrictive abortion regulations, Missouri has really gone over the edge. At a hearing on Tuesday, the state’s health director told lawmakers that he had been tracking the periods of women who’d been to the state’s only Planned Parenthood clinic, in St. Louis. The director, Dr. Randall Williams, used a spreadsheet to determine whether the clinic had done any surgeries that resulted in failed abortions. The testimony is part of a weeklong hearing on whether to close the clinic—Missouri’s last legal place to terminate a pregnancy.

The spreadsheet used medical records including identification numbers, dates of procedures, the gestational ages of fetuses, and the date of Planned Parenthood patients’ last menstrual periods, according to The Kansas City Star. The information had been made available to state inspectors during an annual inspection. 

Using the spreadsheet, the inspectors discovered that four patients “had to return to Planned Parenthood more than once to have a successful surgical abortion. The failed abortions led the department to have ‘grave concerns’ that caused it to withhold the St. Louis clinic’s license,” according to the Star.

It is still unclear whether Williams’ actions are illegal, and the Missouri House minority leader has called on the Republican governor, Mike Parson, to investigate. Planned Parenthood, however, responded by making clear that that Parson is no ally. “As part of Gov. Parson’s effort to end abortion access in Missouri, Williams manufactured a solution in search of a problem,” Yamelsie Rodriguez, CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said in a statement.

Williams, an ob-gyn, also testified that he is pro-life and has never performed an abortion.

In an earlier extreme anti-choice move, Williams instituted a regulation that requires doctors to perform a pelvic exam on patients at least three days before an abortion. Planned Parenthood refused, saying it would give patients a pelvic exam on the day of their procedure, as it always has. The clinic also chose to stop doing medical (as opposed to surgical) abortions because the group believes the practice of excessive pelvic exams is unethical, “traumatizing, and inhumane.”

“This is government overreach at its worst,” Rodriguez said of the ongoing attempts by the state to take away a woman’s right to choose. “It shadows the Trump administration’s history of tracking the periods of refugee girls under the government’s care. This is outrageous and disgusting.” 

As of June 1, at least 26 abortion bans had been put into place in 12 states, and many more have been introduced by state legislators, according to The New England Journal of Medicine. Louisiana appears to be on track to become the first state in the country without access to abortion (if Missouri doesn’t get there first). The Supreme Court announced on October 4 that it would take up a case challenging a Louisiana law that has made it nearly impossible for doctors to be designated by the state to perform the procedure.

“Access to abortion is hanging by a thread in this country, and this [Supreme Court] case is what could snap that thread,” Alexis McGill Johnson, the acting president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement. 

Also on Tuesday, a federal judge blocked a near-total abortion ban in Alabama that had been signed into law. The law would have allowed the state to charge abortion doctors with a felony that could come with a sentence of 99 years in prison.