Missouri Supreme Court rules amendment legalizing abortion will remain on ballot

Missourians will have the opportunity to vote to enshrine abortion in the state constitution this November, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. 

In a decision published less than three hours before the constitutional deadline to remove a question from the ballot, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling that recommended the measure be stripped from the Nov. 5 ballot. 

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft “shall certify to local election authorities that Amendment 3 be placed on the Nov. 5, 2024, general election ballot and shall take all steps necessary to ensure that it is on said ballot,” the judgment read.

In a lawsuit filed late last month, a number of anti-abortion lawmakers and activists sued Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for certifying Amendment 3 for the ballot. 

On the eve of the Supreme Court hearing, Ashcroft announced he was decertifying the measure, a potentially unprecedented attempt to rescind his previous decision in an attempt to block the measure from the ballot.

The Supreme Court judges said Ashcroft missed his statutory deadline to change his mind.

“Respondent Ashcroft certified the petition as sufficient prior to that deadline, and any action taken to change that decision weeks after the statutory deadline expired is a nullity and of no effect,” the judges wrote. 

In order to get a citizen-led Amendment on the ballot, the campaign behind the measure must first collect enough signatures from six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. When asked for signatures, state law requires that the amendment be attached in full. 

The initiative petition circulated by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom did not include any current law that would be repealed, the issue at the crux of the lower court’s ruling. 

There is also a section of state law that requires initiative petitions “include all sections of existing law or of the constitution which would be repealed by the measure.”

Attorneys for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom have said the amendment would not repeal the state’s current abortion law or take it off the books. Instead, they said, it would create a new law that would supersede much of the existing one because not every element of the current law would be rendered moot, including laws protecting women who get abortions from prosecution. 

And, they added, anything that falls under the scope of the amendment would be left to the judicial system to interpret. 

Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh did not agree. On Friday he ruled that the campaign did not meet the sufficiency requirement through a “failure to include any statute or provision that will be repealed, especially when many of these statutes are apparent.” 

While Limbaugh recommended the amendment be taken off the ballot, he ultimately left the decision up to a higher court.  

Amendment 3 would legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability and protect other reproductive rights, including birth control. Abortion is illegal in Missouri with limited exceptions for medical emergencies.