JEFFERSON CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Missouri legislature has passed a resolution to repeal the “right” to abortion added to its state constitution last fall, hopeful it can put the matter before voters in November 2026.
In November 2024, Missouri residents voted 51.6 percent to 48.5 percent to add to the state constitution Amendment 3, which establishes 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.” Abortion, the destruction of an innocent unborn child in his or her mother’s womb, is never necessary or justifiable, including for health reasons.
This year, Missouri lawmakers introduced House Joint Resolution 73, another proposed amendment that 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 say, may run afoul of the legal requirement that amendments confine themselves to a single subject.
On May 14, the Missouri Senate gave its final approval to HJR 73 by using a Previous Question procedural move to quash a filibuster and send it to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, Missouri Right to Life (MRTL) reports. While the governor could theoretically interfere by calling for a special session, if the move stands it will be put before voters for final approval in November 2026.
“When Judge Zhang removed all safety regulations from Missouri Statutes in a lawsuit against the State of Missouri, women and babies became more in harm’s way than ever before,” MRTL said. “These now-overturned safety regulations were put in place because Planned Parenthood in Missouri has a recorded history of the following, but not limited to these items: dirty abortion facilities, dried bloody equipment, rusty equipment, expired drugs and unqualified personnel. Without oversight, how long would it be before Planned Parenthood reverts back to these abhorrent safety hazards? And because of Amendment 3, our Missouri Constitution would prevent a woman from suing anyone associated with their abortion for any reason.”
READ: Planned Parenthood faces numerous allegations of botched abortions, other injuries: New York Times
Overall, 12 states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
Amendments have been one of the abortion lobby’s most potent tactics. 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, Montana, 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.
