Missouri now forcing doctors to give women unnecessary pelvic exams before abortions

Women in Missouri seeking an abortion must now undergo a mandatory, medically unnecessary pelvic exam 72 hours before having the procedure, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported Thursday night.

The Republican-led state government enacted the rule last Thursday. This is one of several "targeted laws designed to shut down clinics," Maddow said, "to make it impossible to work as an abortion provider in Missouri, penalties and obstacles that the state government has put in place to try to make it too hard and too expensive and just too awkward and difficult and uncomfortable for a woman to get an abortion if she wants one, despite her constitutional right to do so."

Patients already had to wait 72 hours before having an abortion, and doctors conducted pelvic exams on the day of the procedure. Dr. Colleen McNicholas of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri told The Rachel Maddow Show this "inappropriate" new initial pelvic exam is "state-sanctioned, essentially, sexual assault." It does not give her any medical information that would help her care for her patient, she said, and for women with a history of trauma, it can open old wounds.

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Missouri currently has just one operating abortion clinic. Maddow believes the lawmakers have two goals: to punish women who go in for abortions, and to finally push the doctors into giving up, and shutting the clinic down for good. "That is not what's happening," Maddow said. "For now at least, the doctors in Missouri are reluctantly and against their will complying with this new rule, even though they are clearly distraught over it."