The League of Women Voters of Missouri is supporting the Reproductive Freedom measure that the Missouri Supreme Court determined will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.
"Citizens will be able to vote Amendment 3 up or down this fall. This latest challenge to a citizen initiative petition was unprecedented," says LWVMO President Marilyn McLeod. "There's no question that people who signed on to the reproductive freedom initiative want an opportunity to overturn the current strict abortion ban and provide reproductive freedom to women in our state."
“Missouri currently bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother," says McLeod. "I think a large majority of Missouri voters oppose that extreme ban and will vote to restore reproductive freedom and protect women’s health on Nov. 5.”
According to the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of Americans want abortion to be legal in most circumstances.
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 initiative submitted by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom (MCF) in November. More than 70 members across the state were trained to gather signatures.
Here are two key messages the League is sharing to counter disinformation.
- Almost all abortions are done very early in pregnancy. The few who access abortion care later in pregnancy do so in the context of unique life and medical circumstances.
- If passed by voters in November, the initiative would NOT remove the ability of MO state government to regulate services that legitimately seek to further the safety and quality of care. Health regulations that legitimately seek to further the safety and quality of care would stand.
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 national League adopted a position in 1983 “affirming the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices.” In a June resolution proposed by LWVMO, delegates to the LWVUS convention voted to reaffirm its commitment to fight for reproductive rights and justice, including bodily autonomy, privacy, reproductive health, and access to contraception and abortion, and against disinformation on this issue.
