(LifeSiteNews) – The latest draft of an amendment to remove a “right” to abortion from the Missouri Constitution has been cleared to appear on the 2026 ballot, where pro-lifers hope a pro-abortion amendment adopted last year can be undone.
In November 2024, Missouri residents approved a state constitutional amendment establishing a purported “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” that applies to “all matters relating to (so-called) reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, (so-called) abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.” It prohibits the legislature from banning abortion until “fetal viability” and after “viability” if an abortionist claims that killing a woman’s unborn child is deemed “needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
The amendment effectively invalidated the state’s near-total abortion ban, which only allowed abortion when allegedly necessary to avoid the mother’s death or “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
This year, Missouri lawmakers approved another proposed amendment, House Joint Resolution 73, which would undo Amendment 3, banning abortion except for rape and incest in the first trimester and “medical emergencies” throughout pregnancy. It would also ban taxpayer funding for abortion or youth gender “transitions” – the latter of which, critics said, could run afoul of the legal requirement that amendments confine themselves to a single subject.
The language was challenged in court and ordered to be revised, and St. Louis Public Radio reported that Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green has certified as “fair and sufficient” a final draft that will appear on the ballot next year.
The new summary statement reads that voting yes on the amendment “will amend the Missouri Constitution to guarantee women’s medical care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages; authorize laws to regulate abortion providers and facilities to ensure health and safety; require informed and voluntary consent for an abortion, including parental or judicial consent for minors; repeal Article I, Section 36, approved in 2024, and allow abortions in cases of medical emergency, fetal anomaly, rape, or incest, with a 12-week gestational limit for rape or incest; require physicians to provide medically accurate information; prohibit public funding of abortions except in limited circumstances; and protect children from sex-change by prohibiting certain medical procedures and medications for minors, with exceptions for specific medical conditions.”
“Missouri Right to Life praises Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in his bold work to get truthful ballot language on the ballot for the 2026 Amendment 3,” responded Susan Klein, the group’s executive director. “Secretary Hoskins took the court head on, stood strong and won the ballot language debate with the court. We thank Judge Daniel Green for looking at the language and his ruling on the language as well. Missourians have the right to know the truth about what they will be voting on when they go to the polls. The 2026 Amendment 3 will restore protection for women, children and babies in regards to abortion. Parental rights will be restored. Health and Safety for women will be restored.”
Ballot initiatives have been one of the abortion lobby’s most potent tactics to preserve abortion “access” without Roe v. Wade. Up until 2024, it had consistent success since the overturn of Roe v. Wade using false claims that pro-life laws are dangerous to stoke fear about the issue among the general public.
After 2020, pro-lifers either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, Kansas, and Ohio, prompting much conversation among pro-lifers about the need to develop new strategies to protect life at the ballot box as well as consternation within the Republican Party over the political ramifications of continuing to take a clear pro-life position.
Ten states had such amendments on the ballot in November 2024. Pro-lifers defeated pro-abortion ballot initiatives in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, breaking the abortion lobby’s two-year winning streak, but amendments to embed abortion “rights” in state constitutions prevailed in the remaining states.
