Missourians will get their say on abortion rights. Republicans, quit obstructing | Opinion
Editor’s note: This editorial is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org
In what seemed like the 11th hour, a Missouri judge tried this week to keep an initiative to overturn the state abortion ban off the November ballot. The secretary of state even decertified the proposed Amendment 3 while the state Supreme Court reviewed the case.
In a win for pro-choice voters, the high court ruled the amendment could go through. Missourians will be able to vote their conscience.
No matter which side you fall on in this highly contentious debate, one thing is clear: Courts should not get in the way of the people who want to decide on issues themselves, and not only through politicians.
Ballot initiatives bypass politicians
Ballot initiatives are questions placed before voters on local or statewide ballots, often by canvassers collecting signatures from everyday people. This process gives people the ability to propose constitutional amendments. After collecting enough signatures, those proposals can go directly before voters instead of winding through the legislative process of state House and Senate committees and ultimately floor voting.
Some people think the petition initiative is a much more democratic process, while others fear it gives away too much power.
The folks at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center believe the former. The nonprofit reports on its website: “The citizen-initiative process, also known as direct democracy, gives voters the power to directly propose and pass new laws by putting them up for a vote. Direct democracy is the will of the people.”
We agree, within reason, and that’s why there are requirements for a minimum number of signatures required, and for measures to pass by majority vote.
Missouri could be among the first states to respond to the fall of Roe v. Wade if voters approve Amendment 3 and overturn the abortion ban. Eleven states, including our northern neighbor, Nebraska, will vote in November on measures protecting female reproductive health.
Let’s recap: According to The Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Kacen Bayless: “The last-minute courtroom battle centered on an arcane dispute over whether the amendment sufficiently described what laws it would repeal, fulfilling a requirement for ballot measures. Abortion opponents argued it did not, while abortion rights supporters said opponents were misreading the requirement.”
Missouri Supreme Court justices ruled to allow Amendment 3 to appear on the November ballot, but did not immediately issue a majority opinion. The order, announced Tuesday, was signed by Chief Justice Mary Russell, who said, “Opinions to follow.”
Other Midwestern challenges to abortion rights
In Nebraska, there are two initiatives, one for and one against abortion: One would enshrine in the state constitution the right to have an abortion until the baby can survive on its own outside the uterus — about 24 weeks — or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. The other would write into the state constitution Nebraska’s current 12-week abortion ban, passed by the Legislature in 2023, which includes exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the pregnant woman.
Like Missouri, lawyers opposing the abortion rights measure challenged the language of the proposal. A ruling was expected this week.
You may not agree with either side, but voters must have a voice in issues that affect them.
Conservative Missouri lawmakers seem to be chipping away at voter choice. Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled state Senate failed in its plan to make changing the state constitution more difficult. If the proposal had passed and moved on to the ballot, votes would have been counted two ways: by a statewide majority and, whether it has a majority in 82 Missouri House districts, the same number it takes to pass a bill in that 163-member chamber.
Critics described it as an urban-versus-rural issue, where politics and values may differ.
“Their goal is to make sure that if an overwhelming majority in urban areas supports a measure, the rural voters can defeat it nevertheless,” Chuck Hatfield, an attorney representing Protect Majority Rule, told the nonprofit Missouri Independent.
The concerning issue of taking choice away from voters is happening outside Missouri, too.
Last year, another Midwestern state legislature made a proposed change to the state’s constitution. In Ohio, a proposal would have required 60% voter approval rather than a simple majority for changes to the state constitution, but voters rejected it. Well over half of those casting ballots in the state said no on the measure, and the issue led to greater-than-expected voter turnout.
Ohio Democratic Party Chair Liz Walters told NPR that it was a power grab by the state GOP: “We are telling out-of-touch corrupt politicians in the statehouse that we will not go back and we will not give up our power.”
Donald Trump vowed in 2016 to appoint Supreme Court justices who would discard five decades of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade, enabling Republican-controlled legislatures around the country to strip women of their most fundamental and personal rights. It was one of the few campaign promises Trump delivered on. And when that happened, then-Missouri Attorney General, now-Sen. Eric Schmitt was first in the nation to announce the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
Opinion polls have told us for generations that even Republicans believe women, their families and their doctors — not politicians — should make their own reproductive health care decisions. Now that this latest wave of GOP obstruction seems to have been defeated in Missouri, we will hear the true will of the people at the ballot box in November.
