Missouri Defeats an Abortion Ban at the Ballot Box—Again

When the final poll on Missouri’s Amendment 3 was released two weeks before Tuesday’s election, it showed a dead heat—an understandable result given that the anti-abortion, anti-trans ballot measure was profoundly, and intentionally, confusing. 

But Missourians figured it out. The hard-fought measure—which would have amended the state constitution to ban almost all abortions as well as gender-affirming care for minors—lost with only 44 percent of the vote.

The primary goal of Amendment 3 supporters was to overturn the results of a 2024  ballot initiative that enshrined abortion rights into the Missouri constitution. Republicans—who have a supermajority in the state’s legislature—put their own measure on this year’s ballot, but included a new provision they hoped would appeal to conservatives: a ban on trans care for minors. Such care, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, is already illegal by Missouri statute. 

Republican Governor Mike Kehoe—whose wife Claudia served as treasurer of Her Health, Her Future, the campaign supporting Amendment 3—made his closing pitch for the measure on Monday. He suggested that when Missourians passed the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative two years ago by almost 52 percent, they were confused. “For years, I’ve had people tell me they didn’t understand what they were voting on then,” Kehoe said in remarks in Jefferson City, the final stop on a statewide campaign blitz. “I think people are going to be very clear on what they’re voting on” this time, he added. 

When asked whether the fact that Amendment 3 covers both abortion and gender-affirming care might also confuse voters, Kehoe demurred. “They’re voting on both of those, and I think that’s what’s clear,” he said. 

In the same remarks, Kehoe condemned another measure on the ballot, Amendment 6, which would make it harder for legislators to reverse citizen-ballot initiatives—as they tried to do on abortion. “I believe [Amendment 6] is an insult to Missourians,” Kehoe said. “I know that Missourians are pretty smart, and I trust their decision on the people they send to this Capitol.”

Amendment 6, by late Tuesday night, was well on its way to passing, with 60 percent of the vote.

As of last week, Her Health, Her Future had raised just over $7 million, less than a third of the $27 million raised by Amendment 3’s opponents. “The opposition is not talking about abortion because they know they will lose,” state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs, a Democrat, told me last month. “We already won the battle for abortion here in Missouri, and that is why they added gender-affirming care.” 

Amendment 3’s supporters also tried to win over voters by framing the measure as a moderate compromise because, unlike the old, near-total ban, it includes exceptions for medical emergencies, certain fetal anomalies, and rape and incest through12 weeks of pregnancy. But lawyers who have brought cases in Missouri and other states on behalf of women denied emergency care warned that so-called medical exceptions for abortion do not not protect pregnant patients. The proposed language in Amendment 3 “is an absolute disaster zone,” attorney Molly Duane of Amplify Legal told the Missouri Independent.

Meanwhile, as Kylie Cheung of Abortion, Every Day warned last week, leaders of the Amendment 3 campaign saw it as a “stopgap” and “a pathway to a total ban with no exceptions” that would allow them to go after abortion pill providers. In a recording of an October 3rd meeting, Missouri Right to Life Director Susan Klein said the rape exceptions in Amendment 3 are “not what we all want,” but added that the ballot measure “would give us the opportunity to get our legislators the right back… to protect babies from the moment of conception.” 

“We’re going to get there,” she added.

But tonight, they did not. Instead, Missourians reaffirmed their votes from two years ago—yes on abortion, yes on gender-affirming care—and simultaneously made it harder for their state legislature to try to roll those votes back again.