Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft decertified a ballot measure that would legalize abortion, a move aimed at blocking it from appearing on the November ballot, according to a brief filed Monday with the state Supreme Court.
Last month, Ashcroft announced the reproductive-rights proposal would appear on the ballot as Amendment 3. But a Cole County judge on Friday ruled the amendment violated state law and shouldn’t have been certified.
That ruling is now before the Missouri Supreme Court, with a hearing scheduled Tuesday morning and a ruling expected quickly thereafter. The deadline to remove a question from the ballot is also Tuesday.
But before the Supreme Court had the chance to weigh in, Ashcroft said he had changed his mind.
“On further review in light of the circuit court’s judgment, the Secretary believes the amendment is deficient,” the secretary of state argues in a filing with the court.
As of Monday afternoon, Amendment 3 was no longer listed on the secretary of state’s website as appearing on the November ballot.
“The amendment proponents cannot evade constitutional requirements that advocates of other amendments must and have satisfied simply because the proposed amendment concerns a highly charged moral topic,” the brief read. “This Court should enforce the circuit court’s judgment.”
Attorneys for the campaign in a filing Monday evening asked that Ashcroft be held in contempt of court, adding that his decision went against the court’s stay order filed Monday morning that kept the amendment on the ballot until the highest court’s decision was made.
“Secretary Ashcroft’s letter directly tends to interrupt this court’s proceeding and impair respect for this court’s authority,” the filing read.
Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for the campaign behind Amendment 3 — Missourians for Constitutional Freedom — said in a statement Monday that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction at this point, not Ashcroft.
Sweet added the campaign is “confident the court will order the secretary of state to keep Amendment 3 on the ballot.”
Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled last week that the measure should be taken off the ballot, but deferred to a higher court for a final ruling. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom quickly appealed.
Missouri law requires that initiative petitions “include all sections of existing law or of the constitution which would be repealed by the measure.”
During a circuit court hearing Friday, an attorney representing Ashcroft maintained the office believed that the measure met the minimum requirements to be certified.
The anti-abortion plaintiffs who challenged the legality of the amendment have argued that because the campaign behind the ballot measure didn’t list the exact statutes that would be repealed on the initiative petition, the measure is invalid. Attorneys representing Missourians for Constitutional Freedom continue to argue that the measure, if passed, would not truly repeal any part of Missouri’s constitution, but rather supersede most of the current ban on the books.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom turned in signatures of more than 380,000 Missourians across the state who supported the issue landing on the ballot. If Amendment 3 is ultimately on the Nov. 5 ballot and wins by a simple majority, Missouri could be the first state to overturn an abortion ban.
Amendment 3 would establish the constitutional right to an abortion up until fetal viability and grant constitutional protections to other reproductive health care, including birth control. It would also protect those who assist in an abortion from prosecution.
Nearly every abortion, with limited exceptions for the life and health of the mother, has remained illegal in Missouri since June 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the procedure. Missouri’s ban does not include exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
The plaintiffs — state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, state Rep. Hannah Kelly, anti-abortion activist Kathy Forck and shelter operator Marguerite Forrest — said in a statement Friday evening that the amendment’s scope is about more than just abortion and could be interpreted to also include gender-affirming care and human cloning.
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
