Three initiative petitions, including amendments to allow abortion and sports betting, are set to officially appear on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft issued certificates of sufficiency for public initiative petitions on reproductive health care, sports betting, minimum wage and paid sick leave.
Third Amendment: Reproductive Health
Missouri voters will decide in November whether to guarantee the right to an abortion with a proposed constitutional amendment that would overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban.
The Secretary of State’s Office certified Tuesday that the initiative petition had received enough voter signatures to qualify for the general election, which would require approval by a majority of voters to become part of the state constitution.
Missouri will join at least six states that will vote on abortion rights during the presidential election. Arizona’s Secretary of State approved putting an abortion-rights measure on the ballot on Monday. Bills will also be presented to voters in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and South Dakota. While it does not explicitly mention abortion rights, New York’s bill would ban discrimination on the basis of “the outcome of a pregnancy” and “reproductive health care,” among other things.
Proponents of the proposal expressed confidence that the measure would appear on the Missouri ballot because more than twice the required number of signatures had been submitted.
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said bills to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour and legalize sports betting also had enough signatures to move the state to the November election, but he said a bill to allow a casino on Lake of the Ozarks, a popular tourist destination, did not meet the necessary threshold.
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The U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights nationwide in 2022, setting off a new wave of state-by-state fights and leaving the decision to voters. Since the ruling, most Republican-majority states have enacted new abortion restrictions, while most Democratic-majority states have enacted measures to protect abortion access.
Abortion rights supporters won in all seven states that have already decided on ballot measures for 2022 and beyond: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont.
A Missouri law banning abortion “except in medical emergencies” went into effect in 2019, following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The law makes performing or inducing an abortion a felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison, but women who have abortions cannot be prosecuted.
Since then, very few abortions have been performed in Missouri facilities, but that doesn’t mean Missouri residents aren’t getting abortions: They may get their abortion pills from out of state or travel to clinics elsewhere, including across the border in Illinois and Kansas.
A Missouri ballot measure would create a right to abortion until the fetus is likely to survive outside the womb without special medical treatment. Fetal viability has generally been considered to occur around 23 or 24 weeks into a pregnancy, but medical advances have led to downward revisions to that time frame. The ballot measure would allow abortion after fetal viability if a medical professional determines it is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.
The number of states considering abortion ballot measures may grow. Officials in Montana and Nebraska have not yet decided whether proposed abortion rights measures will qualify for the November ballot. Nebraska officials are also considering a competing constitutional amendment that would enact the state’s current law banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
This is breaking news and will be updated.
___ David A. Reeve of The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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