Missouri voters on Tuesday thwarted an attempt to repeal the state’s constitutional right to abortion and to prohibit transgender medical procedures for minors.
Amendment 3, which would have repealed a 2024 constitutional amendment legalizing abortion, failed by a vote of 55.2% to 44.8% when the Associated Press called the result at 11:18 p.m., with about 94% of the ballots counted.
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Eleven states, including Missouri, have passed abortion rights amendments by ballot initiative since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022.
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Amendment 3 was the first attempt by anti-abortion advocates to repeal an abortion rights amendment that was passed by ballot measure in a previous election. The failure to repeal the state’s reproductive freedom amendment could discourage similar efforts in other states.
Amendment 3 was intended to repeal the reproductive freedom amendment and allow the state legislature to enact laws restricting or prohibiting abortion throughout pregnancy, except in cases of “medical emergency, fetal anomaly, rape, or incest.” Under Amendment 3, abortion in the case of rape or incest would only be allowed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Amendment 3 was also written to prohibit gender transition medical procedures for minors, including puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgeries.
The state’s reproductive freedom amendment narrowly passed in 2024, with 52% of the vote, establishing a “fundamental right” to autonomy in prenatal care, birth control, and abortion. The 2024 measure legalized abortion in the Show Me State up to the point of fetal viability, or the point at which the fetus can survive “by natural or artificial life-supportive systems” independent of the mother.
Abortion rights advocates opposed to Amendment 3 outspent anti-abortion groups supporting the measure by roughly $7 million, according to their respective October campaign filings.
But anti-abortion supporters of Amendment 3 received a boost late in the campaign cycle from Gov. Mike Kehoe (R-MO) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who have spoken out against the reproductive freedom amendment since it passed in 2024.
Hawley shared a campaign video supporting Amendment 3 on his profile, calling the reproductive rights amendment passed two years ago too extreme for Missourians.
“In less than three weeks, we have the chance in Missouri to ban late-term abortions and stop crazy transgender surgeries on minor children,” Hawley said.
Anti-abortion advocates have pointed to the campaign against Florida’s abortion amendment in 2024 by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as the blueprint for Republicans to prevent the passage of reproductive freedom constitutional amendments via ballot initiative.
Kelsey Pritchard, spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Washington Examiner ahead of Election Day that figures like DeSantis and Hawley weighing in on abortion-related ballot initiatives are necessary to tip the scales and turn out the vote.
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“It really takes people in the GOP who have a leadership position to speak out and to make the case that these things are extreme and not to be deceived by the language,” Pritchard said.
Pritchard said before the election it was her hope that Missouri “can be the first state to undo this horrible ballot measure.”