The amendment, which could be debated by the Missouri House next week, would outlaw abortion with a limited set of exemptions
BY: ANNA SPOERRE
Missouri Independent
A revamped constitutional amendment moving forward in the Missouri House would ban nearly all abortions in Missouri. But most voters likely wouldn’t know that just by reading the drafted ballot language.
The Republican-backed amendment, if passed out of the legislature and approved by voters, would outlaw abortion with limited exceptions for medical emergencies and survivors of rape and incest prior to 12 weeks gestation.
The amendment seeks to overturn an abortion-rights amendment approved by voters in November that legalize abortions up until the point of fetal viability. This made Missouri the first state to overturn an abortion ban after lawmakers enacted a trigger law in 2022 that banned the procedure with exceptions only for medical emergencies.
While the proposed ballot language would ask voters if they want to repeal Article I, Section 36 of the constitution —the current abortion-rights amendment — it does not directly ask voters if they want to ban or outlaw most abortions.
Instead, it would ask voters if they want to “guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages,” a right that is already guaranteed under the current constitutional amendment.
Missourians would also be asked if they want to “ensure women’s safety during abortion,” “ensure parental consent for minors,” allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape and incest” and “protect children from gender transitions.”
If approved by both the House and Senate, Missourians could be asked to weigh in on reinstating an abortion ban as soon as a special election the governor could call this year, or during the 2026 midterm election.
The legislation approved by a House committee Monday, is the second iteration of legislation filed by state Rep. Melanie Stinnett, a Republican from Springfield.
Stinnett’s initial language included a criticized police reporting requirement for survivors of sexual violence. Two out of every three sexual assaults are not reported to police, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
That requirement was removed in Monday’s version.
On Thursday, House Speaker Jon Patterson, a Republican from Lee’s Summit, said while he anticipates the GOP will continue to refine the exact language to put before voters, he doesn’t foresee the rape and incest exceptions being cut out in later debate.
“That’s something that the people spoke on,” Patterson said. “That’s something that all the legislators recognize is something that we have to keep.”
The new legislation, like its predecessor, proposes a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors. It also seeks to reinstate state regulations on abortion providers and facilities, including admitting privileges at a local hospital, licensing requirements and inspections.
The amendment would allow abortions in cases of fetal anomaly, which the legislation defines as “a structural or functional abnormality in the unborn child’s gestational development that would make life outside the womb impossible.”
The bill specifies that this would include ectopic pregnancies but exclude a fetal diagnosis of a disability.
State Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Democrat from Ferguson, raised concerns with this language on Monday. She questioned how the amendment would apply to a fetal diagnosis where a newborn could survive birth, but would die shortly after, including in cases of anencephaly, a fetal birth defect in which part of the brain or skull don’t develop properly.
The new proposal also looks to require that any legal challenges to the state law around reproductive health care be heard in Cole County.
After the abortion-rights amendment passed in November, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri sued the state, arguing several abortion regulations on the books were now unconstitutional. That case is being tried in Jackson County, where one of the state’s several Planned Parenthood clinics is located.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has been unable to convince the judge to move the case to Cole County, where a judge last year attempted to remove the abortion-rights amendment from the ballot.
During Monday’s hearing, state Rep. Pattie Mansur, a Democrat from Kansas City, said she found it noteworthy that in Missouri, a 17-year-old girl could be legally married but would still need permission from her parents for an abortion.
The House Committee on Children and Families previously spent four hours debating the initial bill, including testimony from Missourians who accused lawmakers of attempting to overturn the will of the people.
Republicans have continued to defend their decision to spend much of the legislative session on an abortion amendment by arguing that Missourians were misinformed on what they were voting on in November — a reasoning that continues to draw fury from abortion-right supporters both in the legislature and in their districts.
“The most disappointing piece of that is the Republican’s consistent insistence on defying the will of the voters in this state,” House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City, told reporters last week. “Whether it’s on abortion or paid sick leave and minimum wage, the first order of business this year has been to undo what Missourians went to the ballot box to vote for.”
Aune also took notice of how late into session the proposed amendment was making its way out of committee.
“It seems to me that the reason this has been slow rolled is that there simply is not consensus on the other side of the aisle on what language to end up with, how far to go or not, what they think that they can get passed by the voters or not,” Aune said Thursday. “That is likely causing a lot of contention in their caucus right now, and I’m not mad about that.”
But there didn’t seem to be much disagreement come Monday between GOP members of the House Committee on Children and Families who passed the revised language after just a few minutes of discussion.
“It was time to get this moving,” state Rep. Holly Jones, a Republican from Eureka who chairs the committee, told her colleagues Monday.
The Senate version of the legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Adam Schnelting, a Republican from St Charles, passed out of committee in early March but has yet to be heard on the Senate floor.
Abortion within the state remains out of reach for many Missourians, despite voters in November codifying the right to reproductive health care in the state constitution.
This includes the most common type of abortion. Medication abortions remain inaccessible through Planned Parenthood in Missouri after the state rejected complication plans submitted by the clinics outlining continued care for patients in the case they had any adverse effects from the medication.
The rejection notice sent by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services was based on criteria set in an emergency rule published Thursday by the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office that included a requirement that clinics must provide the names of any physicians who prescribe abortion medication.
In response, Planned Parenthood on Friday filed a motion asking that a Jackson County judge block the state statute that requires the clinics submit an abortion medication plan. As of Monday, three Planned Parenthood clinics — in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis — had started seeing some patients for procedural abortions again.