JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Lifted by election results in five states, Missouri abortion rights supporters are weighing whether to pursue a ballot measure for 2024 to overturn the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
Pro-abortion rights groups won ballot measures in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont last week, building on a successful August vote in Kansas protecting that state’s constitutional right to abortion.
Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Pro-Choice Missouri, said there has been “very clear enthusiasm from people in all corners of Missouri” since Nov. 8 “who want an opportunity to vote directly on abortion access.”
“These efforts take a broad, dedicated coalition and cost millions — tens of millions of dollars,” Schwarz said. “I don’t see how something like this — of this magnitude — would be possible without outside investment.”
Julie Lynn, spokeswoman for Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, asked about a possible 2024 ballot measure, said, “people are looking at all options to try and regain access to abortion in Missouri, and that is one of the possibilities.”
A change to the state constitution, which would require more signatures to place on the ballot than a change to state statute, would prevent lawmakers from repealing any abortion protections voters might approve.
Missouri’s 2019 abortion law banned all abortions, except in cases of medical emergencies, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Questions have swirled over what constitutes a medical emergency. The law also contains no exceptions for abortions in cases of rape and incest.
Sam Lee, lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, said abortion opponents could propose a ballot measure to compete with the abortion rights campaign.
He said the anti-abortion community could either go through the Legislature to place a question on the ballot or collect signatures to do so.
“It’s certainly something that we’re thinking about,” Lee said. Without a proposal filed by abortion rights supporters, Lee said his side is taking a “wait-and-see” approach.
If two conflicting measures pass, “the one with the highest affirmative vote ... would prevail,” Lee said.
Abortion became a flashpoint in the race for U.S. Senate, with Attorney General Eric Schmitt signing an order in June triggering Missouri’s ban after the court decision.
Schmitt won the Senate race by a 13 percentage point margin over Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, who published an ad featuring a Joplin woman who was denied an abortion in Missouri “when my water broke at 17 and a half weeks, (and) I found out I was going to lose my daughter.”
Missouri’s Republican-leaning electorate has broken with the GOP-led Legislature repeatedly in recent years — shooting down a “right to work” law that unions opposed, expanding Medicaid and legalizing medical and recreational marijuana.
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