After more than two years of an almost total ban, abortion is on its way to being legal again in Missouri. Voters said yes to Amendment 3, with 52 percent approving, according to preliminary vote totals from the Missouri Secretary of State.
Nowhere was that news more well-received than at a downtown St. Louis election night watch party hosted by the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, an organization formed in 2023 and collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to get the amendment on the ballot and then knocked on around a quarter million doors encouraging people to go vote for it.
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Tori Schafer with the ACLU of Missouri told the assembled crowd that the ban had been a “nightmare” for Missourians but that after this night, Missouri would be both the “first state to begin a total abortion ban and the first state to end a total abortion ban.”
The optimism in the room was palpable from the start of the night, with leaders already anticipating efforts to undo the yes vote—as well as how they’d make sure those efforts weren’t successful—even as the vote counting was just getting underway.
More than two years ago, in June 2022, minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Missouri became the first country to ban abortion outright. The ban, which had no exception for rape or incest, was seen even by some on the center right as going to far. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, an umbrella organization whose ranks include two Planned Parenthood affiliates, the ACLU of Missouri, and Abortion Action MO, collected more than 380,000 signatures earlier this year to get Amendment 3 on the ballot.
But on its way to yesterday’s vote, Amendment 3 supporters routinely found themselves contending with Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, an outspoken opponent of abortion who for most of this year was also running for governor. Ashcroft at one point sought to have the amendment’s ballot summary ask Missourians if they wanted to “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions, from conception to live birth.” Supporters of the amendment sued to prevent that happening. Ashcroft also later pulled the amendment from the ballot after he’d already approved its inclusion, which led to the Missouri Supreme Court ordering the amendment remain on the ballot.
One thing Amendment 3 supporters didn’t struggle with was funding. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom raised north of $30 million, almost ten times the amount raised by political action groups urging people to vote no on the measure.
Even after yesterday’s passage, the amendment’s supporters say they expect to have to keep fighting to see the amendment implemented.
“Tonight, we’re going to focus on celebrating, and then tomorrow, the work to make sure this amendment is actualized begins,” said Schafer.
Yesterday’s yes vote follows similar results in post-Roe, abortion-related amendments and referendums in states like Kansas and Ohio.
Since voters overturned Ohio’s ban last year, there have been numerous attempts to install new curbs on abortion access in the state, similar to what Amendment 3 supporters expect in Missouri. However, Mallory Schwarz of Abortion Action MO says that all those efforts to reinstate abortion restrictions have been deemed unconditional. That’s a good omen for Amendment 3’s prospects here, Schwarz said.
