A federal appeals court has blocked Missouri from enforcement of a 2019 law banning abortion after a gestational age of 8 weeks. The law also would have prevented abortion on the basis of the fetus having Down Syndrome. The lawsuit was filed by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union. The law had been blocked by a lower court pending the judicial process. Similar laws have been struck down in North Dakota and Iowa. The state says it plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

In 2021 several states have passed laws banning abortion based solely on a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome. An appellate court in Ohio has said that the state can implement a 2017 law. The governors of South Dakota and Arizona recently signed such bills. Texas has introduced a bill prohibiting “discriminatory abortion” for a long list of conditions and “any other type of physical, mental, or intellectual abnormality or disease.”