To Impose Abortion Ban, Missouri GOP Aims to Stymie Direct Democracy
Ever since Missouri voters approved a ballot measure to codify the right to abortion and overturn the state’s ban, Republican lawmakers have engaged in brazen attacks to undermine the will of the people. Their efforts reached a fever pitch last week when the legislature passed a deceptively worded referendum asking voters to repeal the recent amendment and approve a new ban.
It’s a reminder that conservatives don’t support voters having a say on abortion via direct democracy — when Republicans claimed they wanted to send the issue of abortion back to the states, they meant returning power to themselves alone.
In November, Missourians passed Amendment 3, which established a right to abortion until fetal viability, with nearly 52% support. Pro-choice advocates immediately sued to overturn the state’s ban and it took months for a judge to rule that providers could begin offering abortions, though officials are still blocking medication abortions from resuming.
On Wednesday, the legislature passed a referendum that would amend the constitution to ban nearly all abortions in Missouri, effectively repealing Amendment 3, and also ban youth gender-affirming care, which is already prohibited. But the proposed language doesn’t say it would repeal Amendment 3, nor does it explicitly tell voters they’d be reinstating a ban, let alone codifying it in the state constitution. House Joint Resolution 73 would ban all abortions unless there is a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or if the pregancy resulted from rape or incest — but, in those cases, the abortion is only allowed up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.
However, the summary that voters will see is selectively written. The referendum text asks voters if the state constitution should be amended to “allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest,” “ensure women’s safety during abortions,” and “guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages.” That’s very different from banning nearly all abortions, with a ticking clock for rape and incest survivors. HJR 73 is a cynical attempt to dupe voters into believing they’re granting more exceptions to abortion laws when they’d really be allowing abortion bans.
Amid protests, Senate Republicans shut down the debate process to pass HJR 73 through the chamber amid a Democratic-led filibuster. Right before Republicans cut off the debate, they voted down a Democratic amendment to change the summary to say that HJR 73 would repeal Amendment 3.
Advocates said in a press release that it “uses deceptive language designed to mislead voters into unknowingly overturning their Constitutional right to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions, and enacting multiple bans on abortion.” Tori Schafer, the Director of Policy and Campaigns at the ACLU of Missouri, aptly described it as a “trojan horse to reinstate Missouri’s total abortion ban.”
Gov. Mike Kehoe (R) now gets to decide if the referendum will go to voters in 2026 or this fall if he calls a special election.
No matter when voters weigh in, the Republican-controlled legislature has laid the groundwork to try to ram this Trojan horse through. In April, lawmakers passed a bill that would make it harder for people to challenge misleading language in ballot summaries — like a referendum that bans abortion but doesn’t tell people it’s doing that. Senate Bill 22 says that if people sue over summaries, judges can’t rewrite them until the Secretary of State has first tried three revisions. This process has to be completed at least 70 days before an election, at which point the language is locked in. This new provision will make it incredibly difficult for abortion rights supporters to amend the misleading summary.
As Republicans work to enshrine an abortion ban into the state constitution, they’re also striving mightily to gut the amendment that passed in November. The same bill gives Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) the right to appeal temporary injunctions against state laws or constitutional provisions. Bailey recently used it to appeal the county judge’s February order that allowed some abortions to resume up to the Missouri Supreme Court. It’s possible that the high court could halt abortions once more. The ACLU of Missouri and the state’s two Planned Parenthood affiliates underscored in a statement that conservatives are doing everything they can to undermine the statewide vote. “Rather than following the will of the people, the same anti-abortion politicians that fought against Amendment 3 and lost at the ballot box have changed the rules of both the initiative petition and the court procedures so they can try to reinstate Missouri’s abortion ban,” they said.
Abortion procedures have finally resumed after a judge used Amendment 3 to block multiple restrictions, but medication abortions are still not allowed. Planned Parenthood submitted so-called “complication plans” to the Health Department in February in order to begin prescribing abortion pills. In March, the Health Department issued new emergency rules and rejected their plans the same day by claiming they didn’t comply. Among other unnecessary stipulations, the state will now require having an OB-GYN who lives within 25 miles of the clinic available around the clock for seven days after a patient takes the medication. The two Planned Parenthood affiliates are suing both over the emergency rules and over a cease-and-desist letter from AG Bailey that they stop offering medication abortions when they had never resumed doing so.
While Republicans in other states like Ohio and Arizona have tried to blunt successful abortion amendments, Missouri is in a league of its own with the breadth and depth of its attacks. Top lawmakers are explicit that they will ignore their own voters. State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman said in February after a judge struck down the abortion ban: “I’m here to tell you the Missouri supermajority of Republicans will not stand for this. There will be another option to vote, so that people understand this is not going to continue in the state of Missouri.”
Now, advocates will have to waste precious resources to defeat HJR 73, time and effort that could have gone to expanding abortion access in the state, including for young people and others left behind by the limited protections of Amendment 3. Perhaps that’s the point.
Susan Rinkunas is an independent journalist covering abortion, reproductive health, and politics. She is a contributing writer at Jezebel and her reporting has appeared in The Guardian, Slate, The New Republic, The Nation and more.
As a Democracy Docket contributor, Susan covers the intersection of abortion, bodily autonomy and democracy.