In Missouri, the campaign supporting a ballot initiative to provide a state constitutional right to abortion submitted 380,159 signatures on May 3, 2024. If enough signatures are found valid, the initiative will appear on the ballot on Nov. 5, 2024.
Voters in 12 states may decide on abortion in 2024. Ballot measures have been confirmed for three states: Florida, Maryland, and New York. Measures have been proposed in nine other states, including Missouri.
The initiative, if approved, would amend the Missouri Constitution to provide a state constitutional right for reproductive freedom, which is defined as “the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.”
The amendment would also provide that the state legislature may enact laws that regulate abortion after fetal viability, which is defined in the initiative as “in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
In Missouri, abortion is banned with limited exceptions, which include saving the life or preventing a serious risk to the health of the pregnant woman. This law went into effect on June 24, 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
Following the submission of petition signatures, Tori Schafer, attorney for the ACLU and spokesperson for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said, “Today, we turned in boxes filled with hopes and dreams of bodily autonomy. Our message is simple and clear: we want to make decisions about our bodies free from political interference.”
Stephanie Bell, a spokesperson for Missouri Stands with Women, the campaign opposing the initiative, said, “Our pro-life coalition is united to defeat any effort by out-of-state extremists to reverse Missouri’s pro-life laws and place unregulated, taxpayer-funded abortions up to the birth of a child in our state’s constitution.”
In order for the initiative to qualify for the ballot, it will need a minimum requirement of valid signatures found in six of the eight state congressional districts. The minimum requirement is equal to 5 percent of the votes cast for governor in the previous gubernatorial election. This means that the absolute minimum of valid signatures required statewide is 107,246 total, but it will need to reach the requirement in six of eight congressional districts to qualify for the 2024 ballot.
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