Missouri voters could decide whether to restore abortion rights in the state if constitutional amendments made public on Thursday make it to the 2024 vote.
The proposals would amend Missouri’s constitution to protect abortion rights and pregnant women, as well as access to contraception.
Currently, most abortions are banned in the state. There are exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for cases of rape or incest.
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Missouri’s proposals are backed by a new group called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, which has hired at least one Democratic strategist from Missouri. The group and its treasurer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Missouri’s Republican-led legislature has enacted a law, signed into law by Republican Governor Mike Parson in 2019, to ban most abortions, in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. The law came into effect last year following the court’s decision to end constitutional protections for abortion.
Several coalitions of lawmakers, including a top Republican donor, attempted to put the law to a public vote in 2019. But Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, widely regarded as a top candidate for Missouri governor in 2024, initially rejected the petitions until a court forced him to approve them.
Lawyers eventually gave up on trying to put the law to a public vote, accusing Ashcroft of dragging its feet on the proposals and giving them the impossible task of collecting the roughly 100,000 voter signatures needed in just two weeks.
Ashcroft will also play a role in the fate of Missouri’s pending constitutional amendments. His office is responsible for writing executive summaries of the proposals, which are used as a guide for voters.
Once Ashcroft and other elected officials have completed the executive summary and a fiscal analysis, lawyers can begin collecting the voters’ signatures needed to get the proposal on the ballot.
A proposal by Missouri activists would allow a referendum on a constitutional amendment protecting abortion at the state level. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)
Missouri abortion rights advocates are the last to go directly to voters in hopes of restoring rights lost after Roe’s fall.
Kansas voters sent a resounding message in August about their desire to protect abortion rights by rejecting a ballot to add language to the Kansas Constitution that said it does not grant the right to abortion.
Abortion rights advocates won in November in the four states where access was on the ballot when voters enshrined it in the state constitution in battlefield Michigan as well as blue California and Vermont — defeating an anti-abortion measure in deep – red Kentucky.
Ohio advocates filed a ballot in February to establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.”
Missouri’s proposed constitutional amendments would allow Republican-led legislatures and state agencies to place some restrictions on abortion.
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But restrictions on abortion would only be allowed “if it is for the limited purpose and has the limited effect of improving or preserving the health of a person seeking care, consistent with generally accepted clinical practice standards and evidence-based medicine, and not infringe upon that person’s autonomous decision-making,” the amendment states.
Sanctions for both patients seeking reproductive care and medical providers would be banned.
Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers this year are focused on raising the bar to change the state constitution from a simple majority vote to at least 60%, which could make it more difficult to pass the abortion rights proposals.
Republican lawmakers have been trying for years to crack down on initiative petitions, which have been used to enact policies that the Republican-led legislature either avoided or opposed. For example, a citizen-led ballot initiative in 2020 forced the state to expand Medicaid coverage despite years of opposition from Republicans.
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Other efforts by abortion rights advocates to overturn the ban on the procedure in Missouri include a lawsuit filed in January by religious leaders who support abortion rights. They claim lawmakers openly invoked their religious beliefs when drafting the measure, imposing those beliefs on others who do not share them. The lawsuit is pending.
