The campaign to restore reproductive rights in Missouri collected 380,159 petition signatures in just three months and turned them in to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office on May 3. To put a citizen-led constitutional amendment before voters, the campaign had to collect signatures from 8% of voters in six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts (a total of about 171,000 signatures)
LWVMO endorsed the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative Petition submitted by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom (MCF). More than 70 members across the state were trained to gather signatures.
Click here for the 10 reasons the League shared to counter a deceptive "Decline to Sign" campaign by opponents that falsely claimed the it would allow abortion for all nine months of pregnancy.
A Missouri appeals court rejected the Secretary of State's extreme ballot summaries. The final ballot summary says:
Do you want to amend the Missouri Constitution to:
- establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid;
- remove Missouri’s ban on abortion;
- allow regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient;
- require the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and
- allow abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman?
State governmental entities estimate no costs or savings, but unknown impact. Local governmental entities estimate costs of at least $51,000 annually in reduced tax revenues. Opponents estimate a potentially significant loss to state revenue.
For more information, go to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom (moconstitutionalfreedom.org) or send an email to reprorights [at] lwvstl.org.
The League’s position since 1983 has been to “protect the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices.”
