The Planned Parenthood clinic in Gladstone has begun offering medication abortions, joining Planned Parenthood locations in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis that resumed the service after a June court ruling.
The Northland clinic, which began offering appointments earlier this month, is the first Planned Parenthood location in the Kansas City suburbs to provide medication abortion. The organization said it is initially scheduling several medication abortion appointments each month, and those appointments have filled quickly.
The Gladstone clinic joins Planned Parenthood locations in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis that resumed offering medication abortions following a June 19 ruling by Jackson County Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang.
Patients seeking a medication abortion in Missouri must still have an in-person appointment with a licensed physician, and only a physician may prescribe mifepristone, the first of the two drugs used in a medication abortion. Nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other advanced practice clinicians still cannot prescribe or provide medication abortions under Missouri law.
The June ruling eliminated several restrictions that had blocked medication abortions since 2018, including the 72-hour waiting period, a mandatory pelvic exam and a requirement that patients take the first pill in the physician’s presence. Patients may now take the medication at home after the required in-person physician visit and prescription.
Medication abortion accounts for about two-thirds of abortions performed in the United States, making it the most common method of ending a pregnancy.
Although Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in 2024, medication abortions did not immediately resume. Procedural abortions returned first after a series of court rulings, but medication abortions remained unavailable because providers still had to comply with medication-specific restrictions that Planned Parenthood argued made the service virtually impossible to offer.
Judge Zhang ruled that many of those restrictions violated the reproductive rights amendment because they imposed burdens not required for comparable medical care and interfered with rights guaranteed by Missouri’s Constitution. She struck down many of those requirements while leaving in place the physician-only prescribing requirement and the in-person physician evaluation.
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has announced plans to appeal the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court.
In November, voters will decide Amendment 3, a legislatively referred constitutional amendment that would again ban most abortions, with limited exceptions for medical emergencies and pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. If approved, the amendment could once again significantly restrict abortion access in Missouri.