Missourians voted for abortion rights. Politicians keep fighting freedom | Opinion

One year ago today, Missourians won. We were the first state in the country to end a near-total abortion ban by a vote of the people.

One year of legal abortion and the right to reproductive freedom in Missouri. Many thought this was impossible. Many told us it was impossible.

And from the beginning, politicians did everything in their power to sabotage the campaign and the initiative petition process to make it as hard possible to gather the signatures needed to put abortion rights on the ballot.

They even tried to strip Missouri voters of the opportunity to vote on this essential issue. But Missourians fought back and defied their expectations.

We held our first signature gathering training on Feb. 12, 2024. And 81 days later we delivered more than double the amount of needed signatures — and 267 days after that, we won. This was a win for all Missourians.

Last year, we achieved something remarkable. We defeated one of the most strict abortion bans in the nation, and in a presidential election year that heavily favored anti-abortion conservatives. Missourians made their voices heard. We demanded abortion rights. We demanded reproductive freedom.

But the anti-personal rights politicians in our state government don’t actually care what Missourians want. They care about their own power and political ambition, no matter the cost to Missouri families.

We gave them the opportunity to do the right thing — to respect the 1,538,659 Missourians who voted to legalize abortion and protect reproductive freedom in the Missouri Constitution.

While they spent the entire 2025 legislative session fighting to get a new abortion ban on the ballot, we spent it organizing Missourians.

Thousands of us traveled to the state capitol over and over and over again to voice our support for personal freedom. We took time off work, arranged child care and upended our lives to drive anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours to Jefferson City.

Many of us had never testified before, but the stakes were too high to sit on the sidelines. Witnessing the treatment of some of these Missourians by their own elected representatives was appalling, to say the least.

But Missourians did not back down. They kept showing up and sharing their stories, staring down those same anti-abortion rights politicians over and over again, making them bear witness to the pain they cause.

These politicians don’t care about the devastation their abortion bans cause Missouri families. They don’t care that Missourians just voted to legalize abortion.

Because of them, a new abortion ban will be on the ballot in 2026. These corrupt politicians know banning reproductive freedom is a losing strategy, so they’re doing everything they can to trick voters into voting away our rights, never mentioning in their ballot language that a yes vote on the new Amendment 3 would actually ban abortion.

Instead, they highlight so-called “exceptions” to the near-total ban, which wouldn’t actually allow people to get abortion care.

We’re not going to let them win.

When I look back over these last two years, the thousands of volunteers, the hundreds of thousands who signed the petition across every county in the state, and the more than 1 million who voted — it’s impossible not to see the power of Missourians when we come together and take action.

Now, at this time of celebration, it’s also a critical moment to reignite our power and expand our Missouri-grown movement to protect legal abortion and stop the General Assembly’s abortion ban on the 2026 ballot.

Cara Hile is the senior organizer at the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Abortion Action Missouri, the state’s leading grassroots abortion rights organization. She lives in Grandview.