By Jason Hancock| Editor-in-Chief
Good morning,
For years, the story of abortion in Missouri has been a story about the road — thousands of residents crossing into Kansas or Illinois every year because they couldn't get care at home. New Guttmacher data out this week shows that road hasn't gotten any less crowded. What's changed is that a second path opened alongside it.
The number of Missourians getting abortion pills mailed to them by out-of-state telehealth providers has quadrupled since 2023, even as out-of-state travel held steady. That's the tell: telehealth didn't replace the drive to Kansas. It added an option for people who couldn't make the drive at all.
Anna Spoerre talked to the researchers tracking the shift, the advocates enabling it and the lawmakers already drafting next session's response — plus a Kansas City woman who lived it.
(Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent)
by Anna Spoerre
Even as the number of medication abortions obtained through telehealth increased, the number of Missourians traveling out of state neared 12,000.
(Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)
by Staff reports
The Independent tried to answer some of the questions you may have about voting in Missouri’s primary.
(mcdustleroy/iStock Images)
COMMENTARY
by Janice Ellis
Billions of dollars are spent in a national election cycle. Millions of those dollars are spent by candidates and ballot-measure campaigns in Missouri.
NATIONAL HEADLINES
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