Missouri governor calls for special session over ordinance that made St. Louis a 'sanctuary city' for abortions

Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens has called for a special legislative session on Wednesday to overturn a St. Louis ordinance that he said made it into a 'sanctuary city' for abortion.

The session, which will begin on Monday, will be aimed at repealing a St. Louis ordinance that prohibits employers and landlords from refusing to sell or rent property to individuals or businesses that promote or provide abortions.

In May, a pro-life maternity home, a local business owner, and the Catholic diocese in the area challenged the ordinance in court, saying it violates their constitutional freedoms.

Reuters reported that the Missouri legislative session ended in May without overturning the ordinance, which critics said could threaten the work of pro-life pregnancy resource centers.

Greitens said that the special session will also seek stricter regulations on abortion clinics, including requiring yearly inspections and that clinics adopt plans for potential medical complications.

A federal judge has recently blocked a state law that would have required clinics to meet standards for surgical centers and for doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges.

Greitens said that the ruling "weakened our state's health standards in abortion clinics."

The Kansas City Star noted that Planned Parenthood Great Plains and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri announced that it would start offering abortion services in four Missouri locations after the court ruling.

Currently, the only abortion facility in Missouri is the Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis. According to Operation Rescue, the clinic has sent at least 69 women to the hospital in ambulances since 2009, and there had been more than 200 health and safety violations in the facility between 2009 and 2016.

The governor stated in a Facebook video released on Wednesday that the special legislative session would focus on "protecting pregnancy resource centers and proposals for common-sense health and safety standards in abortion clinics."

"I'm pro-life," Greitens said, "and I believe that we need to defend life and promote a culture of life here in the state of Missouri," he added.

Alison Dreith, executive director of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, said that the governor's decision to call lawmakers back to the Capitol to deal with abortion "is an appalling example of out-of-touch priorities."

"Make no mistake about it," Dreith said, "the intent behind the governor's actions is to shame women for their personal medical decisions and make basic reproductive health care harder to access," she added.