Missouri abortion ballot measure could be thrown out following court ruling

St. Louis, Mo., Sep 9, 2024 / 14:40 pm

A proposed constitutional amendment in Missouri that would dramatically expand abortion in the state could be removed from the Nov. 5 ballot after a judge’s ruling over the weekend teed up an expected Tuesday final decision by the Missouri Supreme Court. 

Missouri’s proposed Amendment 3, which qualified for the November ballot in August after garnering thousands of signatures, would mandate that the government “shall not deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” 

It would “prohibit any regulation of abortion, including regulations designed to protect women undergoing abortions and prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone who performs an abortion and hurts or kills the pregnant women,” according to the secretary of state’s office.

A judge in Cole County — which includes the state capital, Jefferson City — on Friday ruled that the full text of Amendment 3 fails to mention the specific laws to be repealed if voters approve the measure. By Missouri law, a ballot measure text must “include all sections of existing law or of the constitution which would be repealed by the measure.” 

A hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court is scheduled for Tuesday morning with a quick decision expected by the high court ahead of a 5 p.m. deadline for finalizing the state’s November ballot. 

Missouri law currently protects unborn babies throughout all of pregnancy with the only exception being cases of “medical emergency.” Missouri is currently one of 10 states that will vote on abortion-related measures in November. 

In his Sept. 6 ruling, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh wrote that the pro-abortion groups proffering the amendment argued that the only way to know which laws the amendment would affect was through future litigation challenging the constitutionality of a particular statute. That theory, “of course, is not an exception” to the state’s ballot measure requirements, he wrote. 

Limbaugh said his “opinion does not suggest that every initiative petition should speculate as to every single constitutional provision or statute that it could affect.” But, he said, the defendants’ failure to “include any statute or provision that will be repealed, especially when many of these statutes are apparent, is in blatant violation of” state law. 

The Thomas More Society, a Catholic public interest law firm based in Chicago, had filed the lawsuit challenging the pro-abortion amendment language in August on behalf of Missouri state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, pro-life advocate Kathy Forck, state Rep. Hannah Kelly, and Peggy Forrest, president and CEO of Our Lady’s Inn, a St. Louis pro-life pregnancy center. 

“We are confident the reviewing court will also hold that Missouri voters have a right to know what they are voting on and to vote on one matter at a time … We will not allow Missourians to be deceived into signing away dozens of current laws that protect the unborn, pregnant women, parents, and children,” Mary Catherine Martin, Thomas More Society’s senior counsel, said in a statement.

Missouri’s seven-member Supreme Court is made up of five Republican appointees and two Democratic appointees. The hearing on the abortion amendment is scheduled for 8:30 a.m.

The Missouri Catholic Conference, which advocates policy on behalf of the state’s Catholic bishops, has called the proposed ballot measure “an extreme constitutional amendment that legalizes abortion at any stage of pregnancy with no protections for the preborn child, even when the child is capable of feeling pain.” Pro-life leaders are leading a “vote no” campaign to counter the measure if it makes it to the ballot. 

Pro-abortion amendment efforts in other states, most recently Ohio, have demonstrated that the broad language of “reproductive freedom” can encompass far more than abortion, with advocates warning that the Missouri amendment could enshrine a “right” for minors to seek permanent gender-transition procedures.