Bills to Watch in the 2025 Legislature
Click on the underscored bill number to see the details and status. Contact your legislator or the bill sponsor to register your opposition or support. There are other bills of interest, but these are some that have been referred to committees. Full texts are available from the links.
HB75 Cathy Loy [R] Establishes the “Missouri Religious Freedom Protection Act”. Exempts religious meetings from closure due to pandemics, for example. Voted “Do Pass” 10-4 in the HCS Committee. Goes to Rules Committee 2/6.
SB241 Stephen Webber [D] Repeals right to abortion. Referred to Senate Families, Seniors and Health Committee.
HJR54 Melanie Stinnett [R] Negates the constitutional right to abortion, except for rape or incest, and has 12-week limit. Referred to House Children and Families Committee.
SJR5 Rick Brattin [R] This is a proposed constitutional amendment that would supersede the “right to abortion” amendment that was passed in 2024. It does not seem to have been assigned to committee (yet).
HB 195 Brian Seitz [R] and HB1119 Holly Jones [R] “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”. Referred to House Health and Mental Health Committee.
SB119 Mike Moon [R] Outlaws “chemical abortion” by making possession of relevant chemicals illegal and their use a felony. Referred Family, Seniors, and Health Committee.
SB118 Mike Moon [R] and SB49 Rusty Black [R] Authorizes “volunteer” Chaplains in public schools. We testified against these bills in the Senate Education Committee hearing.
SB195 Rick Brattin [R] Authorizes 100% deduction for expenses in educating a student in a private school or at home. Referred to Secondary Education Committee.
SJR8 Mike Moon [R] Confers personhood on fetuses, from conception. This would become a constitutional amendment. Referred to Families, Seniors, and Health Committee.
More to come …
Contacts for Missouri legislators can be found at Missouri.gov.
Inside the movement to redirect billions of taxpayer dollars to private religious schools.
Our Annual Picnic
held September 29 featured our guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning Tony Messenger, columnist of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the popular singer, Laka, with her band! We had over 60 people in attendance, and everybody had a wonderful time.
Our Board Member (also AU national treasurer), Brian Kaylor, is coauthor with Beau Underwood of a new book about religious freedom in America. The full title is “Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism”. It provides the AU perspective on the alarming growth of Christian Nationalism. Its thesis is that Christian Nationalism is not just a recent aberrant creation of the right wing, but a consequence of years and decades of encroachment on religious freedom by organizations that are often viewed as benign, the “apple pie” denominations such as the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others. The narrative is very up-to-date, but also provides the history of the foundational events that have led to our current uncomfortable situation. The book is published by Chalice Press and is available everywhere.
down Missouri’s abortion ban as a clear violation of the Missouri state constitution. The talk wasco-sponsored by us, Women’s Voices for Social Justice and the National Council of Jewish Women in St. Louis. It was an excellent illustrated lecture, with many good questions afterward. A crowd of about 100 attended. The next step is a hearing on November 16 at 11:00 in the Carnahan Municipal Courthouse in St. Louis, where the AG will attempt for the second time to have the suit thrown out. The same judge will be hearing the same arguments again, so we have every expectation of prevailing as we did last summer, but this is Missouri, so you never know.
Believe it or not, the St. Louis Chapter just celebrated its 75th anniversary! We hope you were able to join us on November 1, 2023, at the History Museum in Forest Park. We had a good group of about 75 who enjoyed hors d’oevres and drinks, and remarks from our Chapter President, Cynthia Holmes and our national CEO, Rachel Laser. Ms. Laser summarized the status of our lawsuit against the Missouri law that bans essentially all abortions and celebrated this historic milestone of one of the oldest, if not the oldest AU Chapter in the country.