Advocates turn in over 380,000 signatures to get abortion rights on Missouri ballots
A petition to put the right to reproductive freedom on Missouri's 2024 ballot has garnered more than double the number of signatures needed, according to the organization gathering the signatures.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom turned in 380,159 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State. Assuming enough are validated, the petition will allow citizens to vote on ending the abortion ban that was signed in June 2022.
According to the Secretary of State website, petitions proposing constitutional changes must be signed by 8% of legal voters in any six of the eight congressional districts. Based on the six districts with the lowest turnout for the 2020 gubernatorial election, a constitutional change needs 171,592 signatures.
More than 1,800 volunteers collected signatures from all counties in Missouri and all eight congressional districts in "less than 90 days," according to the press release.
“Nearly 14 months ago, in March of 2023, we filed this amendment to end our state’s abortion ban," said Tori Schafer, ACLU Missouri attorney and spokesperson for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom. “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.”
Missouri is one of a dozen states where people are trying to put abortion and reproductive rights on the ballot. After the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, a trigger law in Missouri banned abortion with the exception of medical emergencies.
More: Florida, New York have abortion on the 2024 ballot. What's happening in other states?
What happens now?
May 5 is the deadline for turning in signatures, but it's not yet guaranteed that the proposed amendment will be on the ballot. Before the proposed amendment is added to the ballot, Secretary of State John Ashcroft can ask election authorities to verify each signature or a random sampling of 5% of the signatures. That will entail Ashcroft sending copies of the petitions to local election authorities, who will verify that signees are registered voters in that county. Signatures that are crossed out are not considered valid.
If Ashcroft requests a random sample of signatures be verified, the verification must be certified and returned no later than 30 days after the election authority received the Secretary of State's petition. If Ashcroft asks for all signatures to be verified, the verification must be completed, certified and delivered to the Secretary of State's office by 5 p.m. July 30. According to JoDonn Chaney, spokesperson for the Secretary of State, Ashcroft is not currently considering random sampling for the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative.
Following the verification of signatures, Ashcroft will either issue a certificate saying the petition had a sufficient number of signatures or will issue a certificate identifying a reason for insufficiency. Either certification will be issued no later than Aug. 6 or two weeks after an election authority certifies the verification results, whichever is later.
If the certification says the signatures are sufficient, a public hearing on the proposed measure will take place in Jefferson City.
What does the proposed amendment say? What will it change?
If approved by voters, the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative would add a new section to Article I of the Missouri Constitution. That section would do the following:
Prevent the government from denying or infringing on a person's right to make and carry out decisions regarding reproductive health including prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care and respectful birthing conditions;
Prevent the government from denying, interfering with, delaying or restricting the right to reproductive freedom unless such an action is justified by "compelling government interest achieved by the least restrictive means." The section defines a compelling interest as being "for the limited purpose and has the limited effect of improving or maintaining the health of a person seeking care," aligns with current, widely-accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine and doesn't infringe on the person's autonomous decision-making;
Allow the Missouri legislature to enact laws regulating abortion after fetal viability as long as the government does not deny, interfere with, delay or otherwise restrict an abortion that a treating health care professional deems needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of a pregnant person;
Prevent people from being penalized, prosecuted or "subjected to adverse action" based on the actual, potential, perceived or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion and also prevents penalty, prosecution or adverse action for anyone assisting someone in exercising their right to reproductive freedom;
Prevent the government from discriminating against people providing or obtaining reproductive health care or assisting another person in that aim;
And that if any of the section's provisions are found to be invalid, that the rest of the provisions and their applications to others or other circumstances will not be affected.
"Government" in the petition refers to the state of Missouri, any entity with the power to tax or regulate in the state or any portion of two or more entities with the power to tax or regulate.
The petition defines fetal viability as the point in pregnancy when, in the judgement of a treating health care professional and based on facts of the individual case, there is a "significant likelihood of the fetus's sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures."
Susan Szuch reports on health and food for the Springfield News-Leader. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @szuchsm. Story idea? Email her at sszuch@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri moves one step closer to a 2024 vote on abortion rights
