Missouri voters reject effort to ban abortion in the state

Missouri voters rejected an effort to overturn their state’s abortion protections, according to a projection by Decision Desk HQ, ensuring that the procedure will remain legal and enshrined in the state constitution despite dedicated efforts by Republican leadership.

Amendment 3 would have reversed the results of a 2024 vote that enshrined abortion protections into the state constitution and made Missouri the first state with a constitutional ban on the procedure. It would also have banned gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which is already illegal in the state.

The measure’s failure offers a rebuke to efforts by Missouri’s Republican leaders, who largely oppose abortion. Amendment 3 was put forth by Republican lawmakers who, troubled by the 2024 vote’s results, hoped a second vote might result in the undoing of abortion rights. The state’s first lady, Claudia Kehoe, served as treasurer for the campaign to pass Amendment 3.

Polling conducted this summer suggested that while Missouri voters largely supported abortion rights, they opposed keeping gender-affirming care legal for trans minors, a point emphasized by Amendment 3’s backers.

“We’re trying to do everything. We’ve had canvassers knocking on thousands of doors,” Tom Estes, a Republican state Senate staffer working on the pro-Amendment 3 campaign, told The 19th earlier this year. “There are several pieces of this that resonate really well, that we may not have gotten last time. The number one piece of that is the trans issue.”

The campaign also argued that the abortion protections enacted two years ago had made the procedure unregulated and dangerous, suggesting that the new ban would protect women and children.

The reality, according to abortion providers in the state, has been different: Abortion has been highly regulated and only sporadically available. Even prior to the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortions in Missouri had become almost impossible to obtain, the result of a maze of restrictions enacted by the state’s conservative legislature. By 2022, only one clinic in the state offered abortion, in St. Louis.

“I would love to provide abortion services four to six days a week in Springfield,” Dr. Margaret Baum, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, told The 19th at the end of August. “I think the demand is there.”

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the outcome of the vote.