Missouri Voters to Decide on Abortion Rights Amendment in November
Amendment Would Enshrine Access to Abortion in State Constitution
Missouri voters will have the opportunity to decide on an amendment to the state’s constitution that would enshrine abortion access in the fall general election. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s office announced Tuesday that the petitions to qualify the initiative for the ballot had sufficient signatures.
The group that spearheaded the ballot measure, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, submitted the required number of signatures to officials in early May and celebrated the development in a post on their website.
If approved, the amendment would amend the state’s constitution to:
- Establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care
- Remove the state’s current restrictions on abortion
- Allow the regulation of reproductive health care to improve a patient’s health
- Require the government not to discriminate against people providing or seeking reproductive health care
The ballot would also protect abortion rights up until fetal viability, around the 24th week of pregnancy, except to protect the life or health of the mother.
Missouri has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, with exceptions to protect the life of the mother and for medical emergencies. Ashcroft, who as a Republican is anti-abortion, was among conservatives who challenged the group’s effort to get the amendment on the ballot.
Amendments that would protect or expand abortion rights will also appear on the ballot in seven other states this fall, including neighboring Arkansas, Montana, and Nebraska.
These efforts come in response to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, effectively allowing states to decide whether abortion would be legal. Since then, voters in California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont have enshrined access to abortion in their state constitutions, while similar measures failed in other states.