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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Missouri Senate May Send Personhood Bill to Voters

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Monday, May 9, 2016   

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Missouri voters may be asked to change the state constitution to say life begins at conception.

The House voted in favor of House Resolution 98 last week and now, it's the Senate's turn to debate it.

The bill recognizes an unborn child as a person with a "right to life which cannot be deprived by state or private action without due process and equal protection of law."

It also says fertilized eggs "have a natural right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But Sarah Rossi, director of advocacy and policy for ACLU Missouri, warns the bill takes away a woman's rights.

"It attempts to ban all types of abortion services in the state of Missouri through the Missouri State Constitution," says Rossi. "It would also ban quite a few forms of birth control, and also put in-vitro fertilization and other fertility procedures at risk."

Ash Grove Representative Mike Moon sponsored the bill that would ask voters to decide if embryos at every stage of biological development should be given the right to life.

The Republican-dominated House approved it on Thursday and sent it to the Senate, where there are only eight Democrats among the 34 senators.

M'Evie Mead, director of policy and organizing with Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri, thinks if the bill passes, it will be found unconstitutional, which means an expensive court battle for the state.

She contends lawmakers have plenty of other priorities to focus on.

"The Senate absolutely should not spend the very last week of Missouri's legislative session with so many pressing things that need to be tended to - expanding Medicaid, helping with education, looking at our state's infrastructure."

Similar measures have been challenged in other states, and Rossi is convinced that would also be the fate of HR 98.

"For us, it's a constitutional issue, but at a deeper level, it's a health and welfare issue," says Rossi. "It's a emotional and mental health issue, and while I don't disregard the moral and religious views of the proponents of these bills, our state's constitution and our state statutes are not the place for the religious and moral judgments of other people."

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood say the legislation collides head-on with Roe v. Wade, the 43-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.



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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

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