RESOLUTIO|U!I$, ELECTIONSS WERGOVMEWHRELATION
WHEREAS, any official position of the City of Los Angeles with respect to legislation, rules,
regulations or policies proposed to or pending before a local, state or federal governmental body or
agency must have first been adopted in the form of a Resolution by the City Council with the
concurrence of the Mayor; and
WHEREAS, the ability to access safe and legal abortions is an important human right; and
WHEREAS, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 970 million women, representing 59%
of women of reproductive age, live in countries that broadly allow abortion and 41% of women of
reproductive age live under restrictive laws; and
WHEREAS, legal restrictions on abortion do not result in fewer abortions and instead compel those
seeking abortions to risk their lives and health by resorting to unsafe abortion practices; and
WHEREAS, according to the World Health Organization, 23,000 women die of unsafe abortions each
year; and
WHEREAS, women across the world have fought for the right to access safe and legal abortion for
decades; and
WHEREAS, in the United States, the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision affirmed the right to
receive an abortion under the 14th Amendment; and
WHEREAS, the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey Supreme Court decision upheld the right to
receive an abortion, adding that any restrictions should be evaluated under an undue burden standard;
and
WHEREAS, in December of 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in
Dobbs v. Jackson Women 's Health Clinic concerning a Mississippi abortion law that directly
challenges Roe v. Wade; and
WHEREAS, an initial draft opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States on Dobbs f Jackson
Women’s Health Clinic holds that Roe v. Wade must be overruled; and
WHEREAS, millions of women across the United States could soon lose their legal right to abortion if
Roe v. Wade is overturned; and
WHEREAS, the greatest impact of this decision would be felt by marginalized groups who already
face significant barriers accessing abortion care, particularly low-income women of color; and
HAY 0 42022
WHEREAS, research suggests banning abortion in the United States would lead to an estimated
21% increase in the number ofpregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase in the number of
pregnancy-related deaths among Black women; and
WHEREAS, the City of Los Angeles will continue its staunch advocacy for reproductive rights and its
committment to serve as a safe haven for all people seeking abortions;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption
of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby includes in its 2022-2023 State and Federal
Legislative Program SUPPORT for any proposed legislation that would codify the right to safe
abortion into law and urges the State and Federal government to take immediate action to pass
legislation to this effect, as the Supreme Court of the United States appears poised to overturn Roe v.
Wade in the coming weeks.
PRESENTED BY:
r 7mm "''MONICA RODRIGUEZ
NURY M YF TINE2S- y
NITHYA RAMAN Councilmemb*er, 6th District oCouncilmember, 7th Distric
Councilmember, 4th District
HL;T*
So
SECONDED BY:
BUDGET &FINANCE
MOTION
On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade
ruling that recognized women's constitutional right to abortion, effectively endagering the lives
of millions of women across the country. The greatest impact of this decision will be felt by
marginalized groups who already face significant barriers accessing abortion care, particularly
low-income women of color.
Over twenty states are poised to ban abortions upon this ruling and many are concurrently
considering legislation that would criminalize out of state abortion care. The City of Los Angeles
is committed to protecting everyone who seeks abortions in our City and will continue to
advocate for reproductive rights. A study by UCLA's Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and
Policy estimates that 8,000 to 16,000 more people will travel to California each year for abortion
care. Los Angeles will thus likely begin to see an inflow of people seeking access to abortion
care within our City boundaries. It is imperative that we put in place mechanisms to protect those
coming to our City by ensuring that no City resources are utilized to detain persons procuring,
performing, or aiding in abortion care or to cooperate with out-of-state investigations.
I THEREFORE MOVE that the City Council request the City Attorney to prepare and present
a draft ordinance to prohibit any City resources, including, but not limited to, time spent by
employees, officers, or the use of City property, from being utilized to:
• Detain persons for procuring, providing, or aiding in abortion care in the City of Los
Angeles; or
• Cooperate with or provide information to any individual or out-of-state agency or
department investigating persons who procure, provide, or aid in abortion care in the City
ofLos Angeles.
I FURTHER MOVE that the City Council instruct the City Administrative Officer (CAO) to
report back on the feasibility of allocating funding to help subsidize costs for persons from other
states seeking abortion care in the City of Los Angeles.
2~PRESENTED BY: :z:
Councilmember, 4th District
CJ
a:
0
.t~Lt5, ELECTIONS &INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
-~.. ..-~- ----~ RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, any official position of the City of Los Angeles with respect to legislation, rules,
regulations or policies, proposed to or pending before a local, state or federal governmental body or
agency, must have first been adopted in the form of a Resolution by the City Council with the concurrence
of the Mayor; and
WHEREAS, the Supreme Court upheld abortion restrictions in Mississipi thereby eliminating the
constitutional right to an abortion that was first established in the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision; and,
WHEREAS, there is virtually no precedent in U.S. law in which a right ruled fundamental by the
Supreme Court has been completely rescinded; and,
WHEREAS, the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization will have
almost immediate negative impact upon millions of women, as nearly two dozen states have already
passed laws restricting abortion rights, and 13 states previously passed "trigger" bans on abortion which
will go into effect within 30 days of the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe; and,
WHEREAS, prior to the Supreme Court's decision abortion coverage was already highly
dependent on where a person lives; and,
r
t WHEREAS, the patchwork of laws across states will result in significant disparities in health
• outcomes for women, especially women already lacking equal access to family planning and abortion
care, women living in rural areas, low income women, women of color, and Black women who are also
disproportionately affected by higher maternal mortality rates; and,
'· ,WHEREAS, .s.evefal Democratic senators and congressmembers, including U.S. Senator
Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wrote to President Biden urging
him to issue an executive order directing the federal government to develop a national plan to defend
American's reproductive rights, including their right to an abortion; and
WHEREAS, the President can direct the leaders of every federal agency to explore options to
protect abortion rights, including: the use of federal property and resources to increase abortion access
such that reproductive care and abortions can occur on those properties and be exempt from the state's
abortion laws; and,
WHEREAS, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) can issue regulations to further expand
access to abortion inducing medication, as it did in December 2021 when it relaxed restrictions in the way
mifepristone, an abortion medication, is dispensed (previously only in person); and,
WHEREAS, federal agencies can explore the option to provide resources such as travel
vouchers, childcare services, and other supports for individuals where access to abortion care is not
available in their state; and,
WHEREAS, federal agencies like the Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) can clarify how websites and mobile applications that collect reproductive
health data and personal identifiable information should protect said data from the risks presented by the ' R
sale of personal and p · e health information in states that criminalize reproductive care; and, '--"'
cr:
0
WHEREAS, the HHS can encourage states to use their own medicaid funds, which are not
governed by the Hyde Amendment, to cover abortion services and expand other famiy planning services
as well as pursue more aggressive enforcement of federal requirements which guarantee that medicaid
beneficiaries have the ability to seek family planning services from their provider of choice; and,
WHEREAS, the president can move swifty to protect reproductive care and abortion rights by
way of executive order through these and other proposals; and,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the
adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby includes in its 2021-22 State and Federal
Legislative Program sponsorship and/or support of any legislation or initiative, such as the
aforementioned proposals, that use federal resources and property to preserve and increase access to
reproductive and abortion rights.
PRESENTED BY: ;;-!· ///!·"''
•"
MIKE BONIN
Councilmember, 11th Distri~t
SECONDED BY: ~~
QNithya Raman
Councilmember, 4th District
•h
ARTS, PARKS, HEALTH, EDUCATION. &NE1GHB0t<HU0i..·
MOTION
On June 24th, 2022 the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, issuing a 213 page decision
which eliminated the national gauranteed right to a legal abortion for women in the United
States. California stands in opposition to this legal theory, not only having the established law
to protect women, but also in funding and supporting for abortion and parental care providers.
However, due to the court decision, California now is by default the closest abortion-access
state to hundreds of thousands of women in adjacent jurisdictions; for example, the State of
Arizona's ban and criminalization of the procedure went into effect when the decision was
announced.
The City of Los Angeles Community and Family Investment Department operates sixteen
FamilySource Centers that offer a variety of family support resources that include access to
medical services, assistance applying for public benefits, and navigating the public benefit
enrollment process. Although there are 16 sites citywide, more could be done to work with
providers such as Planned Parenthood to increase and strengthen healthcare access for
women, girls and transgender individuals. Ultimately, the goal for the City of Los Angeles is to
improve access and service, especially to those that are most vulnerable.
In order for the City to ensure access to its network, improved coordination with the County of
Los Angeles, the State of California and non-profit partners, a citywide summit on women, girls
and transgender individuals must immediately take place, hosted by the Community and Family
Investment Department, with the support of the Civil and Human rights Department. The goal
will be to have a first of its kind event in Los Angeles, that centers around local, state and
national issues and matters to ensure access and fight back against the gradual reduction of
rights for women, girls and transgender individuals. The City Administrative Officer should also
assist, ensuring that the event(s) have sufficient funding to be successful.
I THEREFORE MOVE that the Community Investment for Families Department, with the
assistance of the Civil and Human Rights Department, and the City Administrative Officer, host
a summit on healthcare access for women, girls and transgender individuals, in partnership with
planned parenthood and other family resource non-profits, and then present recommendations
to Council on improved city-county-state-federal healthcare access to women, girts and
transgender individuals.
-T~) ///7/ , /.
nPRESENTED BY: ,..
=-> ~ ) .,,..;@i(
MITCH O'FARRELL /
Councilmember, 13th District
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
W (AACL) Date.: July 31st 2022
Michael A. Ayele
P.O.Box 20438
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
E-mail: [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]
Request for Records
Hello,
This is Michael A. Ayele sending this message though I now go by W. You may call me W. I am
writing this letter to file a request for records with your office.i The bases for this records request
are [1] the criminal charges filed against Beau Rothwell following the murder of his wife
Jennifer Rothwell ii and [2] the public health crisis created following the decision of the Supreme
Court to overturn the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling of Roe v Wade. iii
I) Records Requested
What I am requesting for prompt disclosure are records in your possession detailing [1] your
discussions about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a married Caucasian couple, who had met at the
University of Missouri-Columbia; [2] your discussions about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a
married couple, who had graduated from the University of Missouri – Columbia in 2013; [3]
your discussions about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a couple, who had married in 2015 in
Saint Louis County; [4] your discussions about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a married couple,
who had been living in the Saint Louis, Missouri area since their 2015 marriage; [5] your
discussions about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a married couple, who were having difficulties
in their relationship as a direct consequence of Beau Rothwell infidelity; [6] your discussions
about Jennifer and Beau Rothwell as a married couple, who had an argument on Monday,
November 11th 2019; [7] your discussions about Jennifer Rothwell as a woman, who was
murdered on November 11th 2019;iv [8] your discussions about Jennifer Rothwell as a woman,
who was declared “missing” on Tuesday, November 12th 2019; [9] your discussions about
Jennifer Rothwell as a woman, who was declared “missing” after she was murdered on Monday,
November 11th 2019; [10] the police report filed by Beau Rothwell on November 12th 2019
declaring his wife to be “missing;” [11] your discussions about Jennifer Rothwell as a woman,
who was 6 (six) weeks pregnant at the time of her murder; [12] your discussions about Jennifer
Rothwell as a woman, who may have been nervous and fearful of sharing the news of her
pregnancy to Beau Rothwell; [13] your discussions about Jennifer Rothwell as a woman, who
performed an Internet search on “what to do if your husband is upset if you are pregnant” before
her murder; v [14] your discussions about Beau Rothwell as a man, who was arrested for
tampering with evidence on Thursday, November 14th 2019; [15] your discussions about Beau
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 1
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
Rothwell as a man, who was criminally charged for murdering Jennifer Rothwell on Monday,
November 18th 2019;vi [16] the criminal charges filed by the Saint Louis County Prosecutor
Office against Beau Rothwell for “tampering with evidence;” [17] the criminal charges filed by
the Saint Louis County Prosecutor Office against Beau Rothwell for murdering Jennifer
Rothwell; [18] your discussions about Beau Rothwell as a man, who was found guilty of murder
in the 1st degree, tampering with physical evidence in a felony prosecution and abandonment of a
corpse following a jury trial at the Saint Louis County Circuit Court (which ended on April 28th
2022); vii [19] your discussions about Beau Rothwell as a man, who was sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility for parole on July 08th 2022; viii [20] your discussions about the
Politico article published on May 02nd 2022, which informed members of the general public and
representatives of the media that the Supreme Court intended to “strike down the landmark Roe v
Wade decision;” ix [21] your discussions about the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the
landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade on June 24th 2022; x [22] your discussions about the
decision of the Supreme Court to issue a much harsher ruling on June 24th 2022 than their 1st
(first) draft suggested (when it was made public by Politico);xi [23] your discussions about the
real possibility that judges of the Supreme Court have read and/or presided over cases similar to
the murder of Jennifer Rothwell; [24] your discussions of the cases read/presided by the current
Supreme Court justices, where they were presented with similar facts to the murder of Jennifer
Rothwell; [25] the ruling of current Supreme Court justices in cases where they were presented
with facts similar to the murder of Jennifer Rothwell; [26] your discussions about the State of
Missouri having become the 1st in the U.S.A to eliminate nearly all abortion services since Roe v
Wade was overturned; xii [27] your discussions about the State of Missouri refusal to finalize
divorce proceedings in cases where a woman is pregnant;xiii [28] your discussions about
(Missouri State Representative) Mary Elizabeth Coleman as a Caucasian woman, who’s been
called the “new face” of the anti-abortion movement; [29] your discussions about the failed
efforts of (Missouri State Representative) Mary Elizabeth Coleman to pass legislation that would
penalize people helping women to get an out of state abortion; xiv [30] your discussions about the
decision of the Kansas City Council to approve legislation that “could reimburse city employees
who need to travel to have an abortion” (following the failed efforts of Mary Elizabeth Coleman
to pass legislation that would penalize people helping women get an out of state abortion);xv [31]
your discussions about the decision of Saint Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones to sign an ordinance
that would put $1 million dollars in funding to help women get abortions out of state (following
the failed efforts of Mary Elizabeth Coleman to pass legislation that would penalize people
helping women get an out of state abortion);xvi [32] your discussions about the decision of the
Missouri Attorney General Office of Eric Schmitt to file a lawsuit against the City of Kansas and
the City of Saint Louis (following the failed efforts of Mary Elizabeth Coleman to pass
legislation that would penalize people helping women get an out of state abortion); xvii [33] the
total number of women the City of Saint Louis expects to help with the $1 million they have set
aside; [34] the minimum and maximum amount of money the City of Saint Louis is willing to
provide to a pregnant woman seeking an abortion in the State of Illinois or elsewhere; [35] your
discussions about the increasing number of women, who are going out of state to have an
abortion; xviii [36] your discussions about the public health crisis that has been created since the
decision of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade;xix [37] your discussions about the
Congressional testimony of Renee Bracey Sherman on the subject of “self-managing abortions;”
xx [38] your discussions about the recently publicized referendum in the State of Kansas on
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 2
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
abortion rights, which is set to take place on August 02nd 2022. xxi
II) Request for a Fee Waiver and Expedited Processing
The requested records do/will demonstrate that [1] Jennifer and Beau Rothwell were a married
Caucasian couple, who had met at the University of Missouri-Columbia; [2] Jennifer and Beau
Rothwell were a married couple, who had graduated from the University of Missouri –
Columbia in 2013; [3] Jennifer and Beau Rothwell had concluded a marriage in 2015; [4]
Jennifer and Beau Rothwell were living in the Saint Louis, Missouri area following their
marriage; [5] Jennifer and Beau Rothwell were having difficulties in their marriage as a direct
consequence of Beau Rothwell infidelity; [6] Jennifer and Beau Rothwell had an argument on
Monday, November 11th 2019; [7] Jennifer Rothwell is a woman, who was murdered in a
gruesome manner on November 11th 2019; [8] Jennifer Rothwell is a woman, who was declared
“missing” on Tuesday, November 12th 2019; [9] Jennifer Rothwell is a woman, who was
declared “missing” after she had been murdered on Monday, November 11th 2019; [10] Beau
Rothwell was the person who had declared Jennifer Rothwell to be “missing;” [11] Beau
Rothwell has been charged with the murder of Jennifer Rothwell; [12] Beau Rothwell has been
convicted and sentenced for the murder of Jennifer Rothwell following a jury trial in Saint Louis,
Missouri; [13] Jennifer Rothwell was 6 weeks pregnant at the time of her murder; [14] Jennifer
Rothwell may have been fearful and nervous of sharing the news of her pregnancy to Beau
Rothwell; [15] Politico is a news media organization, which had informed members of the
general public and representatives of the media that the Supreme Court intended to overturn the
landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade on May 02nd 2022; [16] the Supreme Court has overturned
the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling of Roe v Wade on June 24th 2022; [17] Missouri State
Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman is a Caucasian woman, who’s been called the “new
face” on the anti-abortion movement; [18] Missouri State Representative Mary Elizabeth
Coleman has failed in her efforts to pass legislation that would penalize people helping women
(in Missouri) get an out of state abortion; [19] the City of Kansas has approved legislation that
“could reimburse city employees who need to travel to have an abortion” (following the failed
efforts of Mary Elizabeth Coleman to pass legislation that would penalize people helping women
to get an out of state abortion); [20] the City of Saint Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones has signed an
ordinance that would put $1 million dollars in funding to help women get abortions out of state
(following the failed efforts of Mary Elizabeth Coleman to pass legislation that would penalize
people helping women to get an out of state abortion); [21] the Missouri Attorney General Office
of Eric Schmitt has filed a lawsuit against the City of Kansas and the City of Saint Louis despite
Mary Elizabeth Coleman failed efforts to pass legislation that would penalize people helping
women get an out of state abortion; [22] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has
previously expressed grave concerns about the circumstances surrounding the murder of
Alexandria Kostial.xxii
In my judgments, the facts presented in my request for a fee waiver and expedited processing are
not the sort to bolster public confidence in the activities and engagements of [1] the justices of
the Supreme Court, who are more likely than not to have read and/or presided over cases similar
to the murder of Jennifer Rothwell; [2] the Supreme Court justices, who have overturned the
landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade;xxiii [3] Missouri State Representative Mary Elizabeth
Coleman, who has been described by CNN journalist Elle Reeve as the “new face of the anti-
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 3
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
abortion movement;” [4] Missouri State Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman, who is more
likely than not to have read or heard about cases similar to the murder of Jennifer Rothwell; [5]
the Missouri Attorney General Office of Eric Schmitt, which has decided to file a lawsuit against
the City of Kansas and the City of Saint Louis even though Missouri State Representative Mary
Elizabeth Coleman failed in her efforts to penalize people helping women get an out of state
abortion.
As a Black man with a U.S college degree (who has previously lived and worked in the State of
Missouri), I deplored the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling of
Roe v Wade because I believe it would lead to a public health crisis. For the reasons mentioned
above, I would like to take this opportunity to denounce violence committed against women
irrespective of their racial backgrounds, their sexual orientations, their national origins, their
religious affiliations and their pregnancy status. As a matter of principle, I think that [1] women
should be able to carry a pregnancy to term if they wish to do so; [2] women should be free from
harassment and other undue influence while pregnant; [3] women should be provided emotional,
financial, medical and other adequate support if they wish to carry a pregnancy to term; [4]
women should be provided emotional, financial, medical and other adequate support if they wish
to have an abortion; [5] the decision to carry a pregnancy to term should be left to women as
individuals; [6] the decision to have an abortion should be left to women as individuals; [7]
women intent on getting an abortion will do so; [8] women are not innately sadists and
masochists; [9] women intent on getting an abortion should have access to clinics accredited by
the Joint Commission.
The core issues presented in this records request are as follows. 1) Have the Supreme Court
justices decided to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade after having read and/or
presided over cases similar to the murder of Jennifer Rothwell? If yes, will you promptly
disclose the cases read and/or presided by the Supreme Court justices, where they were presented
with facts similar to the murder of Jennifer Rothwell? 2) Is your city/county/state government
expecting an influx of out of state pregnant women looking to have an abortion? If yes, has your
city/county/state government made preparation for that event? 3) Have you had conversations
about the Politico article (published on May 02nd 2022), which informed members of the general
public and representatives of the media of the Supreme Court intention to overturn Roe v Wade?
If yes, will you promptly disclose those records? 4) Have you had conversations about the
decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade on June 24th
2022? If yes, will you promptly disclose those records?
This records request should be expedited because it puts into question the government’s integrity
about the way that people are treated in the U.S.A on account of their gender, their racial
backgrounds, their national origins and their pregnancy status. My request for a fee waiver
should be granted because [1] I have identified operations and activities of the federal
government in concert with U.S city/county/state government as well as non-profit and for-profit
organizations; [2] the issues presented are meaningfully informative about government
operations or activities in order to be ‘likely to contribute’ to and increase public understanding
of those operations or activities. Under penalty of perjury, I hereby declare all the statements I
have made to be true and accurate. Be well. Take care. Keep yourselves at arms distance.
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 4
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
W (AACL)
Michael A. Ayele
Anti-Racist Human Rights Activist
Audio-Visual Media Analyst
Anti-Propaganda Journalist
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 5
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
Work Cited
i Please be advised that I have previously disseminated a vast number of documents obtained
through records request via Archive.org, Scribd.com, Medium.com and YouTube.com. These
documents have been made available to the public at no financial expense to them. As a member
of the media, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the records you disclose to
me could be made available to the general public through the means I have mentioned above or
other ones. On December 10th 2021, I have launched a website on Wordpress.com for the
purpose of making the records previously disclosed to me by the U.S government further
accessible to members of the general public interested in the activities of their elected and non-
elected representatives. You can find out more about the recent publications of the Association
for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) here.: https://michaelayeleaacl.wordpress.com/
ii Authorities filed a murder charge on Friday against St. Louis County resident and chemical
engineer Beau Rothwell, as the search continued for his missing wife, Jennifer Rothwell. Law
enforcement also released new details in the case that has stretched over the week: St. Louis
County police said they used DNA samples from Jennifer Rothwell’s parents to confirm that
blood found inside the Rothwell’s home was their daughter’s. And court records revealed that
police believe Beau Rothwell killed his wife on Monday. St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell
said in a statement issued Friday that the police department’s investigation led him to file the
murder charge. (…)
Jennifer and Beau Rothwell, both 28, earned degrees in chemical engineering from the
University of Missouri-Columbia in 2013. The couple married in 2015 in St. Louis County.
Jennifer Rothwell has been a chemical engineer since July 2013 for MECS Inc., once a
subsidiary of Monsanto that was purchased by the DuPont chemical company in 2010. Police
first said on Wednesday that Rothwell was missing. (…)
On Wednesday afternoon, about four hours before his arrest, Rothwell’s husband posted a
message on his Facebook page. “Some of you may have heard already, but last night my wife
Jennifer went missing,” he wrote. He went on to say that he had filed a police report and that the
search was ongoing. He gave his cellphone and the police report number. Missing person
posters with Jennifer Rothwell’s photo were posted on trees and in business windows around the
area. But court records and police reports now make this timeline clear: Beau Rothwell reported
Jennifer Rothwell missing at 9:44 p.m. Tuesday. He told police he last saw her early Tuesday.
Her car was found abandoned near Fee Fee Road and Olive Boulevard, about 1½ miles from
her home. But detectives saw Beau Rothwell on video buying cleaning supplies, including
bleach, carpet cleaner and gloves, on Monday. And when police on Wednesday searched the
couple’s home in the 12600 block of Northwinds Drive, north of Creve Coeur, detectives found
wet carpet soaked with bleach and large areas of blood in carpet and carpet padding. Beau
Rothwell, the court documents said, “purchased and applied cleaning products to a large area of
blood in effort to destroy or remove physical evidence with the purpose to impair its availability
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 6
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
in an investigation into the murder of Jennifer Rothwell.” Police arrested him at 7:45 p.m.
Wednesday and booked him on suspicion of first-degree murder and tampering with physical
evidence. He would have been released from custody after 24 hours had he not been charged.
But a few hours before that deadline Thursday, prosecutors charged him with tampering with
evidence, a felony. Detectives had spent hours that day searching the area where Jennifer
Rothwell’s 2011 Hyundai Sonata had been found. The search area included a field near an
Ameren substation on Fee Fee Road near Old Fee Fee Road. An evidence van arrived at dusk on
Thursday near Robinwood West Park, north of the Rothwells’ home. Crime-scene tape was
posted for a time in that area and police could be seen with flashlights.
Beau Rothwell appeared in court briefly on Friday. He wore a khaki jail jumpsuit and his hands
were cuffed in front. He sat motionless waiting to be escorted back to his cell. Beau Rothwell has
no prior convictions, police said. He has family in Columbia, Missouri, and has lived in the St.
Louis area since 2013. St. Louis County police have not responded to any calls for service to the
home in the past five years. Prosecutors asked that no bond be allowed on the murder charge,
and the judge agreed. Relatives of the couple did not return messages from the Post-Dispatch
seeking comment. Husband charged with murder in St. Louis County in wife’s disappearance. St.
Louis Post Dispatch.: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-county-
judge-hikes-bail-to-cash-for-man/article_67ad6115-7277-5ea5-9618-356e89d72d23.html
iii A woman had an incomplete miscarriage. She bled for more than 10 days after emergency rom
staff would not remove the fetal tissue from her uterus. They were afraid they could be
prosecuted if they did so under a law banning abortion that is now in effect in Wisconsin. (…)
Doctors in a hospital in Michigan found themselves treating a woman from out of state with a
life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Even though an ectopic pregnancy is never viable, a doctor
in her home state worried that the presence of a fetal heartbeat made a procedure to remove it
illegal. The woman’s life was at risk and the doctor refused to perform the abortion. (…) In
Louisiana, a doctor described treating a patient whose water broke at 16 (sixteen) weeks. The
fetus was not viable. The pregnancy at that point would put the woman’s life at risk. The patient
wanted her doctor to perform a common 15 minutes abortion procedure but the patient was told
that under Louisiana’s new law, she would need to have an induced delivery instead. According
to an affidavit filed by the doctor, Valerie William “was forced to go through a painful, hours-
long labor to deliver a nonviable fetus, despite her wishes and best medical advice.” As a result,
“she was screaming – not from pain, but from the emotional trauma she was experiencing,” the
doctor wrote. The woman then hemorrhaged nearly a liter of blood. The doctor said that “there
is absolutely no medical basis for my patient, or any other patient in this state, to experience
anything like this. This was the first time in my 15-year career that I could not give a patient the
care they needed. This is a travesty.” (…) One OBGYN in Texas recently described a patient
who started to miscarry and developed a dangerous infection in her womb. The fetus still had
signs of a heartbeat, so an immediate abortion – the usual standard of care – would have been
illegal under Texas law. The doctor said: “We physically watched her get sicker and sicker and
sicker” until the fetal heartbeat stopped the next day, “and then we could intervene.” The
patients developed complications, required surgery, lost multipWle l(iAteArCsL)o–f bMloICoHdAaEnLdA.hAaYdEtLoE be 7
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
put on a breathing machine “all because we were essentially 24 hours behind.” These are just a
handful of the stories doctors have been willing to put on the record about the practical
consequences all over the country following the Supreme Court decision to outlaw abortion. This
is not theoretical. It’s happening now. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFdLCx6naPU
iv Rothwell testified Thursday that he and his wife had argued at their St. Louis County home on
Nov. 11, 2019, about his extramarital affair. He struck his wife in the head from behind with a
mallet, he said, followed her as she stumbled toward the garage door and then delivered a fatal
blow. “In the heat of everything, I hit her again,” Rothwell told the jury. “I believe I cracked her
skull, she fell unconscious and fell down the stairs.”
The killing set off a series of efforts to clean up the crime scene and conceal what he’d done:
buying bleach and paper towels to disinfect the house, driving her body an hour north to an area
near Troy, Missouri, wrapping a plastic bag around her head with duct tape, dumping her naked
body in the woods and covering her in brush. He said he got the idea to remove her clothes from
watching TV crime shows about hiding evidence but couldn’t explain why he did it. He then
discarded a tarp he had used to hold her body along with soiled cleaning supplies in a business
trash bin off the highway during his early morning drive home from Lincoln County.
He testified to abandoning her car on Olive Boulevard early that morning to make it appear as
though she had car trouble on her way to work. He said he sent text messages to her phone that
day to make it seem as though he was worried about her. He also participated in search parties
with her relatives and co-workers. Beau Rothwell found guilty of murdering his pregnant wife.
Saint Louis Post Dispatch.: https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/beau-
rothwell-found-guilty-of-murdering-his-pregnant-wife/article_99045230-2c88-5c6c-8f07-
f8e87178f645.html
v The Missouri woman whose husband is charged with her murder searched “what to do if your
husband is upset you are pregnant” on her cellphone before she vanished last month, authorities
said. Jennifer Rothwell, 28, was six weeks pregnant when she was killed on Nov. 11, just one day
before she was reported missing from her home near the suburb of Creve Coeur, according to
newly released search warrants. Police said her 28-year-old husband, Beau Rothwell, called 911
on Nov. 12 to report that his wife of four years had disappeared, claiming she was last seen that
morning heading to her job but never showed up at the office. Her remains were discovered about
a week later in a remote area near Troy, roughly 45 miles northwest of their home, officials said.
Search warrants were issued for the couple’s home, cellphones, email accounts and Facebook
accounts, authorities said. Her husband was arrested on suspicion of murder the night detectives
searched his home. He was jailed without bond on charges of second-degree murder and evidence
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tampering in the case. Jennifer Rothwell searched about husband being ‘upset you are pregnant’
before murder: cops. New York Post.: https://nypost.com/2019/12/05/jennifer-rothwell-searched-
about-husband-being-upset-you-are-pregnant-before-murder-cops/
vi As previously reported, Beau Rothwell was arrested for tampering with evidence on Nov. 14,
2019 – while his wife was still missing – when surveillance camera captured him buying bleach,
carpet cleaner, and gloves on the day of the murder. Authorities also found “evidence of the
crime murder” at the couple’s home, where the carpets were soaked with bleach. While in
custody, the suspect directed investigators toward a wooded area off a highway where they
found Jennifer’s naked body on November 18th 2019, resulting in murder charges. According to
the Post-Dispatch, Rothwell wrapped his wife’s head in a plastic bag and secured it with duct
tape before trying to conceal her in the brush near Troy, Missouri, about one hour north of the
couple’s home. The victim was six weeks pregnant.
Rothwell confessed to abandoning her car so that people would assume she ran into car trouble
on her way to work and sent text messages to her phone to appear concerned about her
disappearance. Rothwell went as far as to make a Facebook post, which has since been taken
down, appealing for information about his missing wife. During the trial, Rothwell testified that
he and his wife began arguing when he refused to reveal the identity of his paramour, whom
Jennifer allegedly referred to as his “mystery bitch,” according to the Post-Dispatch. He also
accused the victim of carrying another man’s child, which proved to be false when a postmortem
paternity test identified Rothwell as the father.
It was revealed during the investigation that Jennifer used her phone to look up “what to do if
your husband is upset you are pregnant” shortly before the murder, “In his notebook, he listed
pros and cons that showed he was deliberating whether to leave his pregnant wife for another
woman, but worried that ‘the cost was too high,’” stated the prosecuting attorney’s office. “In a
Facebook message to the other woman, he listed three options: break it off with her, divorce his
pregnant wife, or wait and hope for a ‘miscarriage or something.’”
“The State argued that Rothwell finally decided that ‘something’ would be to kill his pregnant
wife and then stage it as a disappearance.” Rothwell’s defense denied the state’s claims of
premeditation, hoping the jury would convict the defendant on charges of voluntary
manslaughter rather than murder in the first degree. “The state is trying to turn this extramarital
affair into some sort of motive or deliberation,” said defense attorney Charles Barberio. “There
simply isn’t any evidence that he ever planned to do it.” Prosecutors also challenged Rothwell’s
claims that he initially struck his wife near the upstairs dinner table before she “rolled down the
basement steps” following the second blow. They said all of the victim’s blood – which the
defendant tried and failed to conceal – was found at the bottom of the basement steps, indicating
he “ambushed the victim.” Man Found Guilty of Pregnant Wife’s Beating Death After Argument
Over His Extramarital Affairs. Oxygen.: https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/beau-rothwell-
convicted-killing-wife-jennifer-rothwell
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Jennifer Rothwell case: Timeline of events. KMOV4.:
https://www.kmov.com/2022/02/04/jennifer-rothwell-case-timeline-events/
vii On Thursday, April 28, a St. Louis County jury delivered a verdict of guilty as charged
on all three counts for Beau Rothwell in Division 18 of St. Louis County Circuit Court.
The jury convicted Rothwell of Murder 1st Degree, Tampering with Physical Evidence in a
Felony Prosecution, and Abandonment of a Corpse.
The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office proved beyond a reasonable doubt that
Rothwell murdered Jennifer Rothwell, his pregnant wife, on November 11, 2019, tampered
with the crime scene at their home in Creve Coeur, and abandoned her corpse. It was a
three-day trial attended daily by more than a dozen of Jennifer's family and friends
The state called to the witness stand many of those f amily members and friends, many
detectives and police officers from the St. Louis County Police Department and the Creve
Coeur Police Department, a DNA analyst and the medical examiner.
The defense called a friend of the defendant, two of his former cowor kers and the
defendant himself. Before he took the stand at the end of the trial, Rothwell had made no
statement other than to direct detectives to where he had abandoned the corpse in a
wooded area of Lincoln County. On the stand, he confessed to killing Jennifer, tampering
with evidence and abandoning her corpse, but denied that the killing was premeditated;
the defense asked the jury for a conviction on Voluntary Manslaughter rather than Murder
1st Degree.
However, in his testimony Rothwell said he struck Jennifer in the right side of the head
with a mallet once in a "red haze" of anger and then again when she tried to flee him in
order to stop her. That in itself was an admission that the second blow was deliberate.
The medical examiner's conclusions and other physical evidence, however, did not support
Rothwell's narrative. The medical examiner testified that the fatal wound to the right side
of the victim's head was the result of a single blow with a weapon much sturdier than a
mallet, such as a baseball bat. Also, Rothwell testified that he struck her upstairs starting
at the dinner table and she rolled down the basement steps only after the second fatal
blow, when all of the victim's blood that he failed to conceal entirely was found on the
basement carpet near the bottom of the steps. The physical evidence supports the state's
argument that Rothwell ambushed the victim near the bottom of the basement steps.
The state's other evidence of premeditation came from things Rothwell wrote before the
murder in a notebook and on Facebook Messenger. In his notebook, he listed pros and
cons that showed he was deliberating whether to leave his pregnant wife for another
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woman but worried that "the cost was too high." In a Facebook message to the other
woman, he listed three options: break it off with her, divorce his pregnant wife, or wait
and hope for "a miscarriage or something." The state argued that Rothwell finally decided
that "something" would be to kill his pregnant wife and then stage it as a disappearanc e.
"This is why we do this job," said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell.
"When we are able to bring justice to a family that has lost a loved one, and lost her in
such a brutal manner, there is no better feeling in the world. Hopefully Jen nifer can rest
in peace and her family can finally get closure. Justice was truly served."
The court set sentencing for July 8 at 11 a.m. Beau Rothwell found guilty as charged on
all counts. Saint Louis County Prosecuting Attorney.:
https://www.stlouiscountyprosecutingattorney.com/pressreleases/2022/4/28/beau -rothwell-
found-guilty-as-charged-on-all-counts
viii Beau Rothwell was sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole after he was
convicted of murdering his pregnant wife. After seeing hundreds of documents and photographs,
the jury found Beau Rothwell guilty of murdering his pregnant wife in the first degree, a charge
that comes with a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The jury returned the verdict on
April 28, 2022. Beau Rothwell closed his eyes, tilted his head slightly down and exhaled,
showing no other emotions, as the Honorable Jude Ellen Ribaudo read the verdict to the
courtroom. The jury made the decision after three hours and twenty minutes of deliberation and
found Rothwell guilty of the two other charges against him; tampering with evidence and
abandoning a corpse.
Jennifer Rothwell’s family and friends sighed in relief, some shedding tears of painful joy. In a
statement to News 4, the family expressed their satisfaction with the prosecution. Friday, the
sentence of life in prison without parole was officially handed down. The family sent News 4 a
victim impact statement: "Jennifer was a bright, loving light in our world. We thought she had
found someone loving and caring to live her life with. After 8 years, we had started to care for,
and love him as well. The day we arrived in St. Louis, thinking Jennifer was missing, he greeted
us warmly, giving me a long hug...thanking me for everything...lying to us, Jennifer’s friends, his
dad, sisters and niece as he prepared to continue his life. Jennifer will never know the joy of
holding her child in her arms, and guiding her through life, instead she walked her through
heaven's gate. Gone is our hope of loving and holding you, Jennifer, and your child for the rest
of our lives. Gone are the moments of quiet joy you would have had with good friends and loving
relatives. Jennifer will never know the ending of Kvothe's story, nor will she know if George RR
Martin ever writes the real ending of Game of Thrones. She'll never know the joy of dressing her
daughter in a Halloween costume she made, and taking her trick-or-treating in a matching
costume. Jennifer is our beautiful baby girl, we hoped for more than 28 years with her, instead
we spread her ashes in Missouri and Wrightsville Beach. Instead, Mark and I, William and
Diane attended Beau's murder trial. My sincere thanks go to the County of Saint Louis police,
prosecutors office and their support staff and departments. A heartfelt thanks go to the jurors
who saw justice done for Jennifer. And my personal thanks go tWo D(AeAteCcLt)iv–eMWIChHitAeEsLidAe. AanYEdLE 11
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Taylor, Lisa Jones and Tom Smith." Beau Rothwell sentenced to life in prison for the killing of
his pregnant wife. KMOV St. Louis.: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/jury-finds-beau-
rothwell-guilty-of-first-degree-murder-in-killing-of-his-pregnant-wife/ar-AAWHG7D
ix The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to
an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and
obtained by POLITICO. The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973
decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent
1992 decision — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — that largely maintained the right. “Roe was
egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be
overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed
the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Deliberations on controversial cases have in the past been fluid. Justices can and sometimes do
change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple
drafts and vote-trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court’s
holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months. The immediate impact
of the ruling as drafted in February would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal
constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or
ban abortion. It’s unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft. No draft decision
in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending. The
unprecedented revelation is bound to intensify the debate over what was already the most
controversial case on the docket this term. The draft opinion offers an extraordinary window into
the justices’ deliberations in one of the most consequential cases before the court in the last five
decades. Some court-watchers predicted that the conservative majority would slice away at
abortion rights without flatly overturning a 49-year-old precedent. The draft shows that the court
is looking to reject Roe’s logic and legal protections. Supreme Court has voted to overturn
abortion rights, draft opinion shows. Politico.:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473
x The Associated Press is making available the full text of the Supreme Court’s ruling
overturning the nationwide right to abortion. Text from Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v
Wade.: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-racial-injustice-gun-
politics-e38479715c763a4972a85cc4003d73f9
xi Conversation Between Joy Reid and Senator Amy Klobuchar on MSNBC.:
Joy Reid (J.R) Question.: Have Joe Manchin, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski (…) ever
expressed to you [Amy Klobuchar] a firm commitment that they will do whatever it takes to
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either (1) codify Roe v Wade or (2) adjust the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade?
Amy Klobuchar (A.K) Answer.: We haven’t heard that from them. We do know that over the
years, they have voted on the side of choice, but here’s the issue. This isn’t a drill. (…) This is
the real thing. (…) This is about November. (…) If we can take back 2 (two) senate seats in
addition to winning the ones where we’re already ahead, then we’re at the golden number of 52
(fifty two). Then, we would have the numbers (…) to get this done. (…) I do see a path for the
women in America. (…) You were so ahead of your time on this Joy. (…) This isn’t about the
1950s. This about the 1850s. Alito literally cited 12th century law in the opinion. He literally
talked about how the word “abortion” is not in the constitution. (…) Well, women are not in the
constitution. The word “she” is not in the constitution. The word “contraception” is not in the
constitution. (…) And instead of going with what justices tended to do in the past, which are
narrow opinions, they went with a sweeping opinion. (…) People thought that the draft opinion
leaked by Politico was going to be moderated. In my mind, this got worse. (…) A vast majority
of Americans favor codifying Roe v Wade. They want to see women rights protected. They don’t
want to go back to the 1850s. They believe and trust women to make the best medical decisions
for their bodies.
Sen. Klobuchar: If We Can Take Back 2 Senate Seats We Can Codify Roe v Wade Into Law.
MSNBC.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmCcU09StWE&t=1s
xii On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, which granted the constitutional right
to an abortion. Since then, the abortion landscape in the United States has dramatically changed
with at least 13 states enforcing bans. The same day Roe v Wade was overturned, Missouri was
the 1st state to make abortion illegal through a “trigger” law. Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina
and Tennessee have enforced six-week bans. In Kentucky and Florida, they have prohibited
abortions after 15 weeks. While some states have been restricting the right to an abortion since
Roe’s reversal, others have been strengthening it. There are 10 states that signed executive
orders that protect people who have had or performed abortions in their states. Abortion
providers in states where access is still available are seeing more out of state patients than ever
before. 30 days since Roe was overturned: How the country has changed. ABC News.:
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/30-days-roe-overturned-country-changed/story?id=87061047
xiii In Missouri, divorce cases cannot be finalized if a woman is pregnant, since a custody
agreement must first be in place, multiple attorneys told The Star. That custody agreement
cannot be completed until the child is born. The state law, while old, gained renewed attention
after the Supreme Court on June 24 overturned Roe v. Wade, repealing the constitutional right
to abortion. The decision immediately made abortion illegal in Missouri. While many call the
restriction outdated, none of those interviewed, including advocates, survivors and attorneys,
know of any efforts to change the law. (…)
There are eight questions asked of everyone filing for divorce in Missouri. One of them is
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whether “the wife is pregnant.” If the answer is yes, the divorce proceedings can continue if the
attorney chooses, but cannot be finalized until the woman is no longer pregnant. That is because,
according to Missouri statute, the court must first establish paternity of a child before a divorce
can be finalized, said Shannon Gordon, a family law attorney practicing in the Kansas City
metro. Due to a statutory presumption that a baby born during a marriage is the child of the
husband, a DNA test is often completed after the child is born in order to establish paternity in
court. Then divorce proceedings can continue. Women in Missouri can’t get a divorce while
pregnant. Many fear what this means post-Roe. The Kansas City Star on Yahoo.:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/women-missouri-t-divorce-while-100000041.html
xiv Conversation between Elle Reeve and Mary Elizabeth Coleman on CNN
Mary Elizabeth Coleman (MEC).: There are a number of provisions in the initial bill that I filed
making sure that Planned Parenthood is not able to be a medical provider. Also, some
enforcement provision (…)
Elle Reeve (E.R).: The bill you introduced was actually referenced in Politico (…) as sort of
what the post-Roe future will look like. There would be penalties for people who went out of
state to seek abortions.
MEC: Yeah, actually that’s wrong. There’s penalties for people who aid or abet violating the
law. In fact, women are explicitly exempted from that.
E.R.: And what would aiding or abetting be?
MEC.: So right now, if a woman in Missouri is wanting to schedule an abortion, she’ll call the
last clinic that’s open here in Missouri and they will schedule an appointment in Illinois. Both of
these entities are actually owned by the same entity. So that’s a coordinated effort to avoid the
laws of the State of Missouri.
The ‘new face’ of the anti-abortion movement. CNN.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz6kE602z3E
xv The day after the Kansas City Council approved legislation that could reimburse city
employees who need to travel to have an abortion — and after St. Louis began pursuing similar
legislation — Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt called the efforts “plainly illegal.” Kansas
City’s ordinance, which passed 10-2 during Thursday’s meeting, could reimburse city employees
for health care-related travel expenses outside of Kansas City. The legislation approved
Thursday directs the City Manager Brian Platt to negotiate with Healthcare System Board of
Trustees on the city’s insurance plans. Any changes will require further approval from the City
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Council. The St. Louis ordinance would use federal COVID-19 relief funds for a $1 million
“Reproductive Equity Fund,” for logistical support such as travel; the money would not fund
abortion procedures. And, unlike Kansas City’s, it is not restricted to only city employees. Both
pieces of legislation follow the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the federal right to an
abortion, which caused Missouri’s trigger ban on the procedure to take effect. (…)
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas told reporters Thursday that the way Kansas City’s
legislation was written does not “welcome a legal challenge.” Kansas City government is
officially nonpartisan, but Lucas generally aligns with the Democratic Party. “Using hard-
earned taxpayer dollars, whether it be ARPA funds or other forms of revenue, to fund
nonsensical threats and meritless lawsuits violates the state attorney general’s ethical
obligations as a Missouri attorney,” Lucas said. On Twitter, Lucas wrote that he read a press
release, but hasn’t seen a lawsuit.
The ordinance specifies that it won’t be paid for by taxpayer-generated funds, such as the city’s
general revenue. It comes out of the health care plan, which is funded by employees paying into
their plans, the mayor’s office confirmed. “We will continue to proudly and unabashedly stand
up for the rights of Missouri women and Missouri families in their healthcare decisions. Kansas
City’s lawful resolutions are but one step in doing so,” Lucas said in a statement. (…) Planned
Parenthood Great Plains Votes President and CEO Emily Wales said in a statement that Schmitt
has wasted taxpayer resources on lawsuits. “We’d recommend he focus on those issues closer to
his heart: suing China and using his elected position for political gain,” Wales said. “At
Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, we’ll continue fighting for all Missourians to be equal
before the law.” The legislation does not provide an exact dollar amount that would be available
to Kansas City employees. Instead, they could be reimbursed for travel costs for health care
outside city limits once a year as “recent impediments have been imposed to accessing complete,
comprehensive reproductive health care.” Nearly all abortion is banned in Missouri following
the U.S. Supreme Court opinion last week overturning the federal right to abortion established
by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Missouri’s ban does not include exceptions for rape or incest,
but does for medical emergencies. Many Missourians travel to Kansas to receive an abortion,
making up 44% of all abortions performed in the state in 2021. The nearest abortion clinics to
Kansas City are both in Overland Park. Kansas voters will decide in August to amend the state
constitution to allow state legislators to approve a ban. Missouri AG calls abortion legislation
from Kansas City, St. Louis ‘plainly illegal’ The Kansas City Star.:
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article263096873.html
xvi Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced Thursday that his office filed a lawsuit
against the city of St. Louis just hours after Democratic Mayor Tishaura Jones signed an
ordinance that would put $1 million in funding to help women get abortions out of state. Schmitt,
a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate, called the city ordinance a clear violation of
Missouri law and vowed to stop it in a statement. He painted the ordinance as an “illegal move
to spend Missourians’ hard-earned tax dollars on out-of-state abortions.”
During a press conference before signing the bill, Jones predicted Schmitt’s lawsuit and painted
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it as political theater to prop up his Senate campaign. “I believe that abortion is healthcare and
that healthcare is a human right. He does not,” Jones said. “I believe, and a majority of
Missourians believe, reproductive healthcare decisions should stay between St. Louisans, their
God, and their doctor. The attorney general does not. “I will not back down when our opponents
threaten, bully or demean our city — especially the attorney general, who’s more concerned
about chasing clout than care.”
Schmitt has threatened litigation for weeks after both Kansas City and St. Louis pursued
legislation to help people travel to get abortions. The Republican attorney general has largely
centered his Senate campaign on his publicized lawsuits, which have pushed back COVID-19
mask mandates and on policies of the federal government. The legislation in St. Louis and
Kansas City follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down the federal right
to an abortion, which caused Missouri’s trigger ban on the procedure to take effect. The ban
outlaws the procedure in all circumstances except for a medical emergency.
The St. Louis legislation would not directly pay for abortion procedures, which are almost
entirely outlawed in Missouri. Instead, it would use federal COVID-19 relief money to fund a $1
million “Reproductive Equity Fund,” for logistical support such as travel. An additional
$500,000 is to be paid to organizations that increase access to reproductive healthcare.
Schmitt’s lawsuit, which named the city of St. Louis, its treasurer comptroller and director of
health as defendants, argued that Missouri law bars public money, employees and facilities from
being used to assist or encourage abortions. In a statement, he said the St. Louis bill was
“blatantly illegal.” A proposal that passed the Kansas City Council earlier this month could
reimburse city employees for health care related travel expenses outside of the city. The
resolution states that the money would not come from taxpayer funds. Missouri AG Schmitt sues
St. Louis over plan to help women get abortions out of state, Kansas City Star on Yahoo.:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-ag-schmitt-sues-st-215611153.html
xvii St. Louis has joined the growing list of Democrat-led cities seeking to help women gain
abortion access, even in red states that have largely banned the procedure.
Not long after Democratic Mayor Tishaura Jones on Thursday signed a measure providing $1
million for travel to abortion clinics in other states, Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric
Schmitt sued to stop what he called a "blatantly illegal move to spend Missourians’ hard-earned
tax dollars on out-of-state abortions.” The give-and-take is emblematic of city versus state
battles playing out across the U.S. since June, when the U.S. Supreme Court's decision
to overturn Roe v Wade prompted several states, including Missouri, to ban most abortion
procedures. The Missouri law prohibits abortions except in a medical emergency.
Democrat-led local government leaders in otherwise conservative states have fought back. Like
St. Louis, the city of Cleveland plans to help with logistics costs. Mayor Justin Bibb announced
this week that he’s working with the City Council on legislation to create a $100,000
“Reproductive Freedom Fund” to help pay for travel and lodging for Cleveland residents and
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city employees seeking a legal abortion in another state. In Ohio’s capital on Friday, Columbus
City Council members announced proposals including a $1 million “Education and Access
Fund” to help cover costs for abortion access for city residents, including transportation, child
care and lost wages, and to “bolster community education regarding safe and legal reproductive
health care choices.” They plan to vote on the measure Monday. Days after the Supreme Court
decision, Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said the city would provide travel reimbursement for
city employees who have to leave Ohio for abortions. The City Council in Kansas City, Missouri,
approved a similar plan, also in June. Schmitt has threatened to sue Kansas City, too.
City councils in places such as Austin, Texas, and Nashville have passed measures urging law
enforcement not to prioritize abortion ban enforcement, and other cities are weighing similar
proposals. In Louisiana, members of the State Bond Commission voted this week to withhold a
$39 million non-cash line of credit for the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board power plant
project as a way to “send a message” to city leaders who said they would not enforce the
statewide abortion ban. Attorney General Jeff Landry had urged denial of the financing and said
in a written statement that the commission “forced elected officials in New Orleans to decide if
they will enforce State law.”
The St. Louis law calls for using federal COVID-19 relief money for a “Reproductive Equity
Fund.” The funding is part of a larger health care package that also offers postpartum support,
lactation help, doula assistance and money for COVID-19 testing and vaccine incentives. Jones
said during a news conference prior to signing the bill that she expected a lawsuit from Schmitt,
who is seeking the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in the Aug. 2 primary, and who has filed
dozens of lawsuits ranging from efforts to halt mask mandates in schools to a suit against China
over the coronavirus. “I will not back down when our opponents threaten, bully or demean our
city, especially the attorney general, who’s more concerned about chasing clout than care,”
Jones said. Schmitt said in a news release that the St. Louis measure violates the state law that
makes it “unlawful for any public funds to be expended for the purpose of performing or
assisting an abortion, not necessary to save the life of the mother, or for the purpose of
encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.”
Missouri had just one abortion clinic at the time of the ban, a Planned Parenthood facility in St.
Louis. Two abortion clinics operate in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, and two clinics operate in
Overland Park, Kansas, a Kansas City suburb. St. Louis to help women get out-of-state abortion
access. Associated Press.: https://news.yahoo.com/st-louis-help-women-state-183441552.html
xviii In 2020, 9% of abortions in the United States (81,120 out of 930,160) were obtained by
people traveling out of their state of residence. Estimates for 2020 provide a baseline of
interstate travel for abortion care just before major shifts in the abortion rights and access
landscape took place in 2021–2022.
In the decade prior to 2020, the proportion of abortion patients traveling out of state to obtain
care rose steadily, from 6% in 2011 to 9% in 2020. This increase corresponded with the
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 17
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
enactment of a record-breaking number of state abortion restrictions over the same period. The
main driver of the increase was the larger number of people traveling out of states with highly
restrictive abortion laws:
In the 29 states categorized as hostile to abortion rights in 2020, the proportion of
residents obtaining abortions who traveled out of state for care increased from 9% in
2011 to 15% in 2020.
In contrast, the proportion in “middle-ground” states increased only slightly (from 6% to
9%), and the proportion in states whose policies were generally supportive of abortion
rights stayed largely steady (2% in 2011 and 3% in 2020).
Comprehensive data after 2020 are not yet available, but it is clear from anecdotal evidence
and early research reports that the increased number and extent of restrictions are forcing many
more people to travel out of state for abortion care. In fact, many of the states to which patients
historically traveled to obtain abortions have now restricted or eliminated access entirely, which
means people seeking care will have to travel even farther to obtain it. In the 26 states
considered certain or likely to ban abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, 15% of
residents obtaining abortions traveled out of state for care in 2020; of these 15%, almost half
(46%) traveled to states that have now banned or severely restricted abortion or are likely to do
so. Even Before Roe Was Overturned, Nearly One in 10 People Obtaining An Abortion Traveled
Across State Lines for Care. Guttmacher Institute.:
https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2022/07/even-roe-was-overturned-nearly-one-10-people-
obtaining-abortion-traveled-across#
xix A woman had an incomplete miscarriage. She bled for more than 10 days after emergency
rom staff would not remove the fetal tissue from her uterus. They were afraid they could be
prosecuted if they did so under a law banning abortion that is now in effect in Wisconsin. (…)
Doctors in a hospital in Michigan found themselves treating a woman from out of state with a
life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Even though an ectopic pregnancy is never viable, a doctor
in her home state worried that the presence of a fetal heartbeat made a procedure to remove it
illegal. The woman’s life was at risk and the doctor refused to perform the abortion. (…) In
Louisiana, a doctor described treating a patient whose water broke at 16 (sixteen) weeks. The
fetus was not viable. The pregnancy at that point would put the woman’s life at risk. The patient
wanted her doctor to perform a common 15 minutes abortion procedure but the patient was told
that under Louisiana’s new law, she would need to have an induced delivery instead. According
to an affidavit filed by the doctor, Valerie William “was forced to go through a painful, hours-
long labor to deliver a nonviable fetus, despite her wishes and best medical advice.” As a result,
“she was screaming – not from pain, but from the emotional trauma she was experiencing,” the
doctor wrote. The woman then hemorrhaged nearly a liter of blood. The doctor said that “there
is absolutely no medical basis for my patient, or any other patient in this state, to experience
anything like this. This was the first time in my 15-year career that I could not give a patient the
care they needed. This is a travesty.” (…) One OBGYN in Texas recently described a patient
who started to miscarry and developed a dangerous infection inWhe(ArAwCoLm) –bM. TIChHeAfEeLtuAs.sAtiYlElLhEad 18
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
signs of a heartbeat, so an immediate abortion – the usual standard of care – would have been
illegal under Texas law. The doctor said: “We physically watched her get sicker and sicker and
sicker” until the fetal heartbeat stopped the next day, “and then we could intervene.” The
patients developed complications, required surgery, lost multiple liters of blood and had to be
put on a breathing machine “all because we were essentially 24 hours behind.” These are just a
handful of the stories doctors have been willing to put on the record about the practical
consequences all over the country following the Supreme Court decision to outlaw abortion. This
is not theoretical. It’s happening now. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFdLCx6naPU
xx For the first time ever before Congress, an abortion rights advocate described how to self-
manage the procedure using pills — giving a highly public platform to a method all the more
vital now that the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade. Renee Bracey Sherman, the founder and
executive director of abortion storytelling group We Testify, spoke during a House Energy and
Commerce Oversight and Investigations panel hearing on Tuesday. The hearing included four
other panelists, all of whom discussed the impacts of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to
overturn the landmark ruling guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide.
During her testimony, Bracey Sherman discussed how she considered throwing herself down the
stairs when she was 19 and pregnant. One night, she recalled, she drank “an unsafe amount of
alcohol,” hoping it would cause a miscarriage. “That was when it [abortion] was legal in every
state. Now, it is not and I know some will try the methods that I did,” she said. “And I want them
to know that there are safe methods to self-managing their abortions according to the World
Health Organization.”
Medication abortion is a combination of two drugs — mifepristone and misoprostol — first
approved by the FDA in 2000 for miscarriage and abortion care before the 10-week point. It’s
commonly used in health care settings and is often the type of abortion people get when they go
to an abortion clinic. When used together, mifepristone and misoprostol are more than 95%
effective and safer than Tylenol.
Bracey Sherman explained in plain terms how to take the medication. “It is one mifepristone pill
followed by four misoprostol pills dissolved under the tongue 24 to 48 hours later, or a series of
12 misoprostol pills, four at a time, dissolved under the tongue every three hours,” Bracey
Sherman said. “There’s no way to test it in the blood stream and a person doesn’t need to tell
police what they took.”
Bracey Sherman wore green ― a color that has been used by advocates and lawmakers to show
support for abortion rights since nearly two decades ago during the Argentinian reproductive
rights movement.
“I share that to exercise my right to free speech because there are organizations and legislators
who want to make what I just said a crime,” Bracey Sherman added. “Everyone loves someone
who has abortions.” W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 19
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
These medications are highly regulated and hard to access now that the Supreme Court repealed
Roe and at least a dozen states banned or restricted abortion. As fellow expert witness Dr. Jack
Resneck, President of the American Medical Association, noted, “states that end legal abortion
will not end abortion.” People will continue to seek out abortions, but will likely end up self-
managing their care.
A self-managed abortion is defined as an abortion conducted outside of a traditional health care
setting ― often when a person obtains abortion pills not from a physician and undergoes an
abortion without medical assistance. As Bracey Sherman noted, people can obtain mifepristone
or misoprostol outside of a physician-setting and undergo an abortion similar to the one done at
clinics around the U.S. up until the 12-week point.
Despite the dozens of stories of people being criminalized for self-managing care, self-managing
your own abortion is not illegal in the U.S. Only Nevada, South Carolina and Oklahoma have
laws on the books criminalizing people for self-managing abortions, but legal experts caution
that it’s unclear if those laws would even stand up in court if challenged today. In Historic First,
Witness Explains How To Self-Manage Abortion in Front of Congress. Huffington Post on
Yahoo.: https://www.yahoo.com/news/historic-first-witness-explains-self-170606575.html
xxi In the first of a wave of referendums across the country on abortion rights, Kansas voters will
decide on Tuesday whether the state’s constitution protects the right to terminate a pregnancy.
Should Kansans pass the ballot measure, it would give state lawmakers leeway to ban the
procedure, which they appear likely to do. Abortion remains legal in Kansas for now, with
abortion providers saying they have been overwhelmed by demand from patients in neighboring
Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas – all of which have banned abortion and are now
wrestling with the consequences. “There has been a great deal of shock at the local level from
people who, I think, just didn’t believe Roe would fall or that we could end up in this situation,”
said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates in
all four states. “Kansas is essential for the provision of abortion services here locally, and it is
not hard for people to look across state lines” to see the consequences of bans, she said.
The ballot measure in this state will provide an early indication of how the supreme court’s
decision in June to end a national right to abortion has altered the American political
landscape. California and Vermont are expected to vote on whether to affirm a right to abortion,
while campaigners in Michigan are working to get a similar measure on the ballot. Kentucky
and Montana will have anti-abortion ballot measures. While supporters of abortion access said
there has been a “groundswell” of support since the supreme court’s decision, winning the vote
in Kansas will not be easy. The new constitutional amendment, if approved, would override a
2019 Kansas supreme court ruling that people in the state have the right to terminate a
pregnancy. But the measure appears on Kansas’s primary ballot, typically reserved only for
registered party voters, where they select the nominee for their party in the later November
election. Republican voters are far more likely to participate inWAu(AgAuCstL)p–riMmIaCrHieAsEiLnAK. AaYnEsLaEs th2a0n
REQUEST FOR RECORDS 07/31/2022
Democrats are. Unaffiliated voters make up more than one-quarter of the state’s electorate, but
typically have no reason to come to the polls during primaries. Kansas referendum will test
change in abortion landscape since Roe fell. The Guardian.:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/31/abortion-kansas-constitution-referendum
xxii As a matter of principle, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL)
believes that [1] women should be able to carry a pregnancy to term if they wish to do so; [2]
women should be free from harassment and other undue influence while pregnant; [3] women
should be provided emotional, financial, medical and other adequate support if they wish to
carry a pregnancy to term; [4] women should be provided emotional, financial, medical and
other adequate support if they wish to have an abortion; [5] the decision to carry a pregnancy to
term should be left to women as individuals; [6] the decision to have an abortion should be left
to women as individuals; [7] women intent on getting an abortion will do so; [8] women are not
innately sadists and masochists; [9] women intent on getting an abortion should have access to
clinics accredited by the Joint Commission. The Los Angeles County Library Disclose Limited
Records to Request Filed About Texas Heartbeat Act (a.k.a) Texas Senate Bill 8 & Alexandria
Kostial’s July 2019 Murder. W (AACL), Michael A. Ayele Official Website.:
https://michaelayeleaacl.wordpress.com/2022/07/06/the-los-angeles-county-library-disclose-
limited-records-to-request-filed-about-alexandria-kostial-roe-v-wade-fmla-w-michael-ayele/
xxiii A majority of Americans disapprove of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling overturning
the Roe v. Wade decision, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly
50 years. Public support for legal abortion remains largely unchanged since before the decision,
with 62% saying it should be legal in all or most cases. (…) Nearly six-in-ten adults (57%)
disapprove of the court’s sweeping decision, including 43% who strongly disapprove. About
four-in-ten (41%) approve of the court’s decision (25% strongly approve). Partisan differences
on the legality of abortion have widened in recent years, and Republicans and Democrats are
sharply divided in their initial views of the court’s decision. About eight-in-ten Democrats and
Democratic-leaning independents (82%) disapprove of the court’s decision, including nearly
two-thirds (66%) who strongly disapprove. Most Republicans and Republican leaners (70%)
approve of the court’s ruling; 48% strongly approve. The new survey by Pew Research Center,
conducted among 6,174 Americans between June 27 and July 4 on the nationally representative
American Trends Panel, finds that most women (62%) disapprove of the decision to end the
federal right to an abortion. More than twice as many women strongly disapprove of the court’s
decision (47%) as strongly approve (21%). Opinion among men is more closely divided: 52%
disapprove (37% strongly), while 47% approve (28% strongly). Majority of Public Disapproves
of Supreme Court’s Decision To Overturn Roe v Wade. Pew Research Center.:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-public-disapproves-of-supreme-
courts-decision-to-overturn-roe-v-wade/
W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 21
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About the November 11th 2019 Murder of Jennifer Rothwell & Abortion Rights in the U.S.A - #Roe v Wade - #Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W
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The Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) regrets the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling of Roe v Wade in light of murders such as the one committed against Jennifer Rothwell in the State of Missouri on (or around) November 11th 2019. For your information (FYI), Jennifer Rothwell is a woman who had been declared "Missing" after she was murdered. In other words, Jennifer Rothwell was considered "Missing" for some time after she was murdered. Jennifer Rothwell was also pregnant at the time of her murder. As a matter of principle, the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) unequivocally condemns violence committed against women irrespective of their racial backgrounds, their sexual orientations, their religious affiliations, their national origins, their disability status and/or their pregnancy status.
According to records recently disclosed to the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) by the City Clerk of Los Angeles, California; [1] “any official position of the City of Los Angeles with respect to legislation, rules, regulations or policies proposed to or pending before a local, state, or federal governmental body or agency must have first been adopted in the form of a Resolution by the City Council with the concurrence of the Mayor;” [2] the City of Los Angeles considers the ability to access safe and legal abortions as an important human right; [3] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “970 million women, representing 59% of women of reproductive age, live in countries that broadly allow abortion and 41% of women of reproductive age live under restrictive laws;” [4] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “legal restrictions on abortion do not result in fewer abortions and instead compel those seeking abortions to risk their lives and health by resorting to unsafe abortion practices;” [5] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “23,000 women die of unsafe abortions each year;” [6] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “women across the world have fought for the right to access safe and legal abortions for decades;” [7] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that ”in the United States, the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision affirmed the right to receive an abortion under the 14th Amendment;” [8] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “the 1992 Planned Parenthood v Casey Supreme Court decision upheld the right to receive an abortion, adding that any restrictions should be evaluated under an undue burden standard;” [9] the City of Los Angeles, California is cognizant that the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling on June 24th 2022; [10] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling after hearing oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Clinic; [11] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that the impact of overturning Roe v Wade will be most felt by “marginalized groups who already face significant barriers accessing abortion care, particularly low-income women of color;” [12] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that “8,000 to 16,000 more people will travel to California each year for abortion care;” [13] The City of Los Angeles have tasked their Administrative Officer to report “on the feasibility of allocating funding to help subsidize costs for persons from other states seeking abortion care; [14] the City of Los Angeles have tasked their legal representatives to “prepare and present a draft ordinance to prohibit any City resources, including but not limited to, time spent by employees, officers, or the use of City property, from being utilized to detain persons for procuring, providing, or aiding in abortion care in the City of Los Angeles;” [15] the City of Los Angeles have tasked their legal representatives to “prepare and present a draft ordinance to prohibit any City resources, including but not limited to, time spent by employees, officers, or the use of City property, from being utilized to cooperate with or provide information to any individual or out of state agency or department investigating persons who procure, provide, or aid in abortion care in the City of Los Angeles;” [16] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that the U.S President can “direct the leaders of every federal agency to explore options to protect abortion rights, including the use of federal property and resources to increase abortion access such that reproductive care and abortion can occur on those properties and be exempt from the state’s abortion laws;” [17] the City of Los Angeles is cognizant that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can “encourage states to use their own Medicaid funds, which are not governed by the Hyde Amendment, to cover abortion services and expand other family planning services as well as pursue more aggressive enforcement of federal requirements which guarantee that Medicaid beneficiaries have the ability to seek family planning services from their provider of choice.”
Be well. Stay well. Take care. Keep yourselves at arms distance.
Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W
Anti-Racist Human Rights Activist
Audio-Visual Media Analyst
Anti-Propaganda Journalist
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