Lee agrees but with stipulations. He says nurses or other medical assistants can be held responsible but only if they knew the doctor was going to perform the act. Chapters 562 and 563 of Missouri Revised Statues, dealing with instances when harming someone could be justified, are attached to the last section of the bill. Opponents claim that the 563 reference is an inducement to violence. Since a living infant is a person according to the Missouri Supreme Court, reference to this section could raise the idea of a possible defense for acts of violence against abortion providers.
Supporters call that claim a lie.
Louis Defeo, a drafter of the law, says a person can use deadly force only if no other means of stopping the crime is available. A person must have enough medical knowledge to know what was going on, he says, and even then a person could push the doctor away and then call the police. The final dispute is the lack of a rape and incest exception. While supporters say that early term abortion is available for women in such situations, opponents say that in some cases the victims of rape or incest may not come forward until the late term of the pregnancy period. Legislators in support of the ban claim that by then the infant is living and whatever the means of conception, it should not be killed.