By: Alyssa Hoedl
Published: May 13, 2025
On November 5, 2024, Missouri voters approved Amendment 3, which added a section called “The Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative” to the Missouri Constitution.[1] This section guarantees a fundamental right to reproductive freedom which includes “matters relating to reproductive health care” such as childbirth, birth control, abortion care, and miscarriage care.[2] This Amendment was historic because Missouri was the first state to outlaw abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.[3] Missouri voters, however, are not alone in their attempt to guarantee reproductive freedom. In 2022, Kansas voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have said there was no right to an abortion in the state constitution.[4] While Amendment 3 does guarantee the right to reproductive freedom, it does not override any laws.[5] This means that people must bring lawsuits to knock down any ban on reproductive care or access they view as now unconstitutional.[6]
The majority of voters in Missouri want a fundamental right to reproductive freedom. Instead of listening to those voters, Missouri legislators continue to support and file bills that would restrict reproductive freedom in a variety of Included in these bills is a slew of legislation that would decimate reproductive care and access: bills requiring a registry of pregnant women who are “at risk” of having an abortion,[8] depriving families of the right to make a birth plan for tragic fetal diagnoses,[9] allowing residents to give their tax dollars to and proposing a new constitutional amendment that would ban all abortion with only limited exceptions for rape and incest victims.[11] All of these pieces of legislation go directly against the will of the majority of the people in Missouri. While the bills—including the registry of pregnant women, the ban of comfort care, and the ability to give tax money to anti-abortion centers—do not directly ban abortion, they all restrict matters relating to reproductive health care, in direct opposition to Amendment 3.
While this legislation would technically include exceptions broader than the prior ban—which only permitted abortions in medical emergencies—the exceptions for rape and incest would likely never be used because of how few sexual assaults are reported to the police.[13] This would effectively result in an abortion ban in Missouri once again.
The voters of Missouri approved Amendment 3, an amendment that guarantees a fundamental right to reproductive freedom. Missouri legislators should follow the will of the people and not introduce legislation that completely guts the newfound right to reproductive freedom. If the will of the people is to have a fundamental right to reproductive freedom in the Missouri Constitution, legislators should not interfere with the will of the voters.
[1] See Mo. Const. art. 1, §36; Gabrielle Hays, Missouri voters approve measure to protect abortion rights, PBS (Nov. 5, 2024, 11:52 PM), https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/missouri-voters-approve-measure-to-protect-abortion-rights.
[2] Mo. Const. art. 1, §36.
[3] See Hays, supra note 1.
[4] See Dylan Lysen, et al., Voters in Kansas decide to keep abortion legal in the state, rejecting an amendment, NPR (Aug. 3, 2022, 2:18 AM), https://www.npr.org/sections/2022-live-primary-election-race-results/2022/08/02/1115317596/kansas-voters-abortion-legal-reject-constitutional-amendment.
[5] See David A. Lieb, A judge says Missouri’s abortion ban isn’t enforceable, but there’s no start date for abortions, AP News (Dec. 20, 2024, 8:52 PM), https://apnews.com/article/abortion-ban-ruling-missouri-8a846e1490a965977133eb5854a7602e.
[6] See id. (explaining there are several laws restricting abortion still currently in place).
[7] See Hays, supra note 1 (stating that Amendment 3 earned fifty-three percent of the vote).
[8] See Carter Sherman, Missouri lawmaker proposes registry of pregnant women ‘at risk’ for abortions, The Guardian (Feb. 22, 2025, 7:00 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/22/missouri-abortion-registry-bill.
[9] See Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, Missouri’s ‘born alive’ legislation is not what you think. It’s worse, Mo. Indep. (Mar. 5, 2025, 5:50 AM), https://missouriindependent.com/2025/03/05/missouris-born-alive-legislation-is-not-what-you-think-its-worse/ (stating that the new bill would “force aggressive interventions” for fetuses who have been given a tragic diagnosis instead of allowing for families to make their own birth plans that may choose to use neonatal hospice care, which is also known as comfort care).
[10] See Jeremy Kohler, A New Missouri Bill Would Let Residents Donate to Anti-Abortion Centers Instead of Paying Any Taxes, ProPublica (Mar. 5, 2025, 5:00 AM), https://www.propublica.org/article/missouri-pregnancy-resource-centers-anti-abortion-tax-credit-bill (claiming that these pregnancy resource centers do not provide help to women and “merely discourage women from getting abortions”).
[11] See Anna Spoerre, Lawmakers debate new constitutional amendment banning abortion in Missouri, Mo. Indep. (Feb. 5, 2025, 5:55 AM), https://missouriindependent.com/2025/02/05/missouri-abortion-ban-constitutional-amendment-stinnett-rape-incest-exception/.
[12] See id.
[13] See id. (noting that two of every three sexual assaults are not reported to police).