Bob Buckley for The Examiner: Plenty of Bad Ideas in the Legislature

April 28, 2022

Bob Buckley, partner at White, Graham, Buckley & Carr, is a regular columnist for The Examiner of East Jackson County. In a recent column, Buckley writes about a handful of bills that’ve recently been presented that left him thinking of one of Will Rogers’ famous sayings, “No man’s property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

The article, Plenty of bad ideas in the Legislature, was published in the March 12 edition of The Examiner. An excerpt from the article is below.


Will Rogers once said that no man’s property is safe while the legislature is in session. If he were alive today, he might be tempted to say that no man (or woman) is safe when the legislature is in session.

A bill, House Bill 2810, has been introduced by a state representative from Branson that makes it illegal to terminate an ectopic pregnancy. In fact, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), an organization started after Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973, has stated that it does not consider the performance of standard medical procedures to terminate ectopic pregnancies to be the moral equivalent of an abortion. AAPLOG states that “in a small number of cases a living embryo can be observed in the ectopic pregnancy.”

“Unfortunately, this embryo will die in the near future if observation is continued, and the mother’s life remains in imminent danger from a life-threatening hemorrhage before and after the death of the embryo.”

“Continuation of such a pregnancy cannot result in survival of a baby and entails a very substantial risk of maternal death or disability.”

A bill was introduced in Ohio in 2019 allowed doctors to reimplant ectopic pregnancies to save the life of an unborn child. The problem is that medical science does not recognize such a procedure. Obstetricians from the University of California at San Francisco authored a journal article that stated that ectopic transplantation does not exist.

They further stated: “Ectopic transplantation belongs in science fiction movies, not laws governing reproductive health.”

The author of the Ohio bill later admitted that he had not researched the issue before introducing the bill. Ectopic pregnancy is the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester.

Another bill offered by a St. Louis representative allows a citizen to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion outside of Missouri. Texas has passed a similar law. The author of this bill has offered this bill as an amendment to other pro-life bills. The bill is a recognition that there will always be states that do not make abortion illegal. The author of the Missouri bill is located in St. Louis and is attempting to prevent women who cannot obtain a legal abortion in Missouri from going to Illinois where it is legal.

To read the full article, visit The Examiner.