JEFFERSON CITY — State attorneys on Wednesday defended a decision by Missouri lawmakers to include a ban on transgender medical care for minors in a proposed ballot question that seeks to again restrict abortion, arguing the two are related to reproductive health care.

In a bench trial Wednesday before Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Green, state Solicitor General Lou Capozzi said a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union should be dismissed to allow voters to weigh in on whether to reimpose prohibitions on the procedure that were lifted in a citizen-led initiative last November.

ACLU attorney Chuck Hatfield said the Legislature’s decision to add transgender provisions to the ballot question illegally places two separate subjects in the initiative when only one subject i

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