Gov. Eric Greitens and the Missouri GOP do not back policies that support low-income parents and children to increased access to health coverage under MO HealthNet. Instead they back policies that drive down reimbursements to hospitals. The result? Fewer doctors accept those patients, and low-income families are doomed to lead less healthy and therefore less productive lives, financially, and otherwise.
Greitens’ proposed budget this year tried to cut busing for students to school. If successful, he would have be doomed low income, rural children to a life of lesser education and opportunity, with more missed school days and out-of-pocket expenses for parents. Some Missouri GOP lawmakers still don’t want to fully fund K-12 schools and early childhood programs, which help provide our children a chance for a viable future. With this legislative mindset, Missouri children are literally being set up to fail.
And now Greitens is manufacturing an abortion crisis.
You don’t need “sanctuary” from legal behavior. When Greitens slanders St. Louis as an “Abortion Sanctuary City,” he’s asking us to label legal abortions as criminal and the women who legally choose to have them as felons.
Not only does Greitens back policies that prevent families from getting ahead, but he wants to force women and children to give birth to a child they do not want or cannot provide for. In Travis Zimpfer’s thorough article about Greitens’ abortion-themed Special Session, Zimpfer correctly says that Missouri already has the some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. But Greitens wants to spend even more tax dollars trying to erase the reproductive freedoms of women he disagrees with.
Don Hinkle, one of Zimpfer’s sources, said “The governor called me, probably a couple of months ago, and he told me that the St. Louis ordinance would not stand.” …..So the Governor has determined the future laws of Missouri instead of the legislators and the people? And now he tries to punish lawmakers by calling them back to Jeff City because they didn’t do his bidding within the regular session?
Should we start calling him King Greitens?
When Greitens summoned our legislators to his first special session in May, he painted a picture of them being on summer vacation. In defense of our Democratic and Republican elected officials alike – they are not paid to work all year and are not on vacation. Many are doggedly balancing their service to the people of Missouri with their actual yearly sources of income.
Greitens seeks to bully our legislators in his zealous ideology to protect the unborn when he refuses to protect the born.
I call on the Governor to protect the born first.
I call on the Governor to champion additional protections and funding for women who are the victims of domestic abuse. I call for the Governor to champion additional protections and funding to help children of parental and sexual abuse. I call on the Governor to champion funding to feed children when their parents are unable to work due to disability, addiction, and PTSD.
These are the worthy causes for a special session.
Helena Webb
Ballwin, Mo.
