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Editorial: Gov. Parson & AG Hawley Can Make Up for Greitens By Standing Up for Missouri Women

By Alison Dreith

When people tell you who they are, believe them.

Former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens first told us who he was when he convened a special session of the Missouri Legislature in 2017 specifically to target women seeking abortion care. The legislature passed, at his urging, a package of bills designed to prevent Missouri women from exercising their Constitutional right to choose abortion. He spent $92,000 of taxpayer money to keep legislators in Jefferson City to pass laws for the sole reason of restricting a woman’s bodily autonomy.

Because he has no regard for women and families, Greitens also attacked an ordinance approved in St. Louis that banned employers and landlords from discriminating against women for making reproductive health care decisions. His goal was to make sure it would remain legal for women to be fired or evicted for getting an abortion or for being pregnant. Greitens, who will say anything to boost his own image, claimed these were moves aimed at protecting women and our rights. This could not have been further from the truth.

Former Gov. Greitens didn’t care about women and families, or he would have put his money where his mouth was — he would have made sure TANF funding went to hungry children and families, instead of signing a budget that averted these funds to religious-oriented “crisis pregnancy centers.” He would have made sure that Planned Parenthood was funded so women could get access to contraception, cancer screenings and a full range of reproductive health care services.

I said it back in 2017 and I’ll say it again: the intent behind the governor’s actions was to shame women for their personal medical decisions and make basic reproductive health care harder to access.

So is it really a surprise that a man who has a history of going after women politically stands accused of assaulting them personally?

In the words of NARAL Pro-Choice America Ilyse Hogue, @ilyseh “MO Gov is resigning bc the Court is forcing him to turn over his books to the State Leg on his fraudulent charity. Good riddance, but revenge porn and charges of assault should have been sufficient to shame him into resignation.”

Because of his refusal to resign, the Missouri House of Representatives commissioned a report that ended up being so graphic in nature that many Missourians were unable to finish reading it. The report detailed Greitens trapping a woman in his basement, spitting at her, forcing her to perform a sex act in order to leave, and committing acts of sexual violence. He took a picture without her consent and threatened to release it if the woman revealed his extramarital activity. 

This is the person who thought Missouri women had no right to make decisions about abortion care for themselves, and who tried to wrap women’s health clinics in so much red tape they would be forced to close. The laws he championed in the 2017 abortion special session were on their face unconstitutional after the Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt that defined what an “undue burden” on abortion is. They are being challenged in court by a coalition of groups, including Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. 

Let’s be clear, former Governor Greitens created a short, but harmful, legacy of letting hard working women and families down. He used our tax dollars to boost his own ego but couldn’t be bothered to actually get things done for us. Just because Greitens is gone does not mean women and families across Missouri aren’t still feeling the effects of his costly obsession to further restrict women’s access to basic reproductive healthcare and abortion. 

That’s why we are taking it one step further by calling on Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley to stop Greitens’ shameful anti-woman legacy in its tracks and drop its defense of these unconstitutional laws. Because many states with similar laws have seen these laws struck down by the courts, defending the Missouri versions is a waste of taxpayer time and money. It serves no purpose and it harms women and families. Hawley dragged his feet on investigating Greitens. He should not delay in walking away from the harm Greitens has done to our Constitutional rights. Greitens resigning does not mean he gets to walk free with no consequences for his actions.

Governor Parson, AG Hawley, and the Missouri legislature now have a choice themselves: they can continue Greitens’ path to punishing Missouri women for seeking health care, or they can stand up for Missouri women by protecting their rights.

If anything positive comes out of this awful episode, it should be that.

Alison Dreith is the executive director for NARAL Missouri.