Abortion rights amendment’s passage triggers new legal battle in Missouri

WASHINGTON — Abortion rights advocates prevailed seven ballot measures throughout the US Tuesday’s elections and lost by three.

The losses are the first losses on statewide reproductive rights ballots anywhere in the U.S. since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a ruling that overturned the nearly 50-year-old national right to abortion, proving that opponents of abortion can win with ballot measures.

There were also firsts on the other sides: three amendments calling for a rollback of the abortion ban, including one amendment Missouri which prohibits it at all stages of pregnancy, with exceptions only under limited circumstances to save the woman’s life.

Here’s a look at the results results.

Missouri is the most populous state where a ballot measure could reverse a current ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy.

But the work is not done there yet.

Planned Parenthood affiliates operating in Missouri filed Wednesday in a state court to invalidate the state’s abortion ban and several laws regulating health care.

The Missouri amendment, which takes effect Dec. 5, does not specifically override state laws. Instead, the measure left it up to advocates to ask courts to strike down bans they now believe would be unconstitutional.

Planned Parenthood leaders said on a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday that they plan to start offering abortions at clinics in Columbia, Kansas City and St. Louis if they get the court ruling they’re asking for — starting by blocking enforcement of laws in the book.

“This is just the first step toward realizing and fully implementing the protections of Amendment 3. It is certainly not the last step,” said Richard Muniz, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers.

Clinics had stopped offering abortions in Missouri even before the state’s ban took effect in 2022. They said a list of rules made it impossible for them to operate. In its legal filing, the Planned Parenthood affiliate that covers much of the state says the onerous requirements include that doctors who provide abortions be surgically licensed and that they perform pelvic exams on all patients — even if they only perform abortions with offering medicines.

“Some of these patients choose medication abortion precisely because they do not want instruments inserted into their vagina,” says Dr. Selina Sandoval, a medical director at Planned Parenthood Great Plains, in a legal filing. “I cannot and do not want to subject my patients to unnecessary examinations.”

Planned Parenthood also objects to laws requiring doctors to access nearby hospitals, mandating a 72-hour waiting period for abortions and banning telemedicine for abortions. In addition to the ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, the group calls for the abolition of other bans that take effect after eight, fourteen, eighteen and twenty weeks of pregnancy.

Abortion rights advocates victories announced at the ballot box as a signal of broad support for abortion rights, even in conservative states.

The three states where abortion measures were rejected had special circumstances that did not exist in the other states.

In Floridathe threshold for passing a constitutional amendment is 60%, while most states require a simple majority. Most voters supported adding abortion rights, but this did not meet the requirement.

There, Governor Ron DeSantisa Republican with a national profile, also posed a challenge to proponents GOP sovereign wealth funds to oppose the measure and, among other things, defend a government agency for publishing a web page attacking it other government efforts.

In South DakotaThe measure differs from the others because it would have allowed the state to regulate second-trimester abortion — but only in ways that protect the woman’s health. Because of that provision, most national abortion rights groups did not put money into promoting it, which could have been a factor in its failure in a conservative state.

In Nebraskaboth parties had questions about the vote. Voters passed a law banning abortion after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy — which is consistent with current state law — and also allowing for the possibility of stricter bans. They also rejected the measure that sought to enshrine in the state constitution the right to abortion until viability, which is considered sometime after 21 weeks of pregnancy, although there is no set time for that.

Abortion rights advocates condemned anti-abortion groups’ new strategy to put a competing measure on the ballot as a trying to confuse voters. The approach was considered by anti-abortion groups elsewhere.

Republican Donald Trump regained the presidencydespite its consistency varying points of view about reproductive rights.

If the Republicans win the House of Representatives, in addition to their victories in the House of Representatives Senate and the White House, it could open the door to a national ban.

Trump has said he would veto a national ban despite earlier refuse to answer questions about it.

But Republicans have been accused of trying to recast federal abortion restrictions as “minimum national standards” to distort their own positions on the issue, given the political unpopularity of the Republican Party’s position on abortion.

Judge appointments have already shaped the national abortion landscape. Trump has repeatedly taken credit for appointing three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped form the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s not just the Supreme Court. Trump-nominated US district Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has made statements with national consequences, including one that has an impact access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Through executive authority, a president can also limit the number of abortion pills shipped by post and declare that there is a law that requires doctors to do so stabilizing patients in the emergency room does not require them to have an abortion. A new government could also retreat to one federal lawsuit that challenges aspects of Idaho’s ban.

One interpretation of the presence of some of the ballot measures was that they were intended in part to encourage Democratic voter turnout in candidate elections.

If that was the plan — and some abortion rights advocates argue it wasn’t — it didn’t appear to affect other races statewide.

The predominantly Republican states of Montana and Missouri have passed abortion rights protections and also elected GOP candidates for president, U.S. Senate and governor.

In Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy defeated three-term incumbent Senator Jon Tester, who tried to combine his campaign with abortion rights.

Three other Republican states — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota — rejected abortion ballot measures and backed Trump for president and Republican senators where they were on the ballot.

The Democratic states of Colorado and Maryland expanded abortion rights and voted for Democrats in statewide elections. The same goes for New York, where the ballot measure bans discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes” and does not specifically mention abortion — but has been defended by abortion rights advocates, who say it would preserve access.

The measures were also passed in Arizona and Nevada, where presidential and U.S. Senate elections had not yet been held as of Wednesday afternoon.

Democrats are the most competitive Senate races focused their closing arguments and ads around abortion, an issue they hoped to capitalize on after previously motivating voters on the ballot. But abortion rights it was not possible to place them over the top – also in Montana.

Texas Rep. Colin Allred, a Democrat, failed in his bid to defeat Senator Ted Cruz after Invest $5 million in an ad campaign targeting abortion and raising the issue in campaign speeches and during a October debate. Allred leaned on the personal stories of Texas women affected by the state’s abortion ban, which has sparked national outrage.

In Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno defeated incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown after Brown and his allies attacked mobile video which emerged late in the campaign, showing Moreno criticizing suburban women who base their votes on abortion rights.

A fiercely contested race between Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde has also been and appears to be heavily focused on abortion close enough on Wednesday to request a recount.

In the Texas city of Amarillo, located in the state’s conservative Panhandle region, voters overwhelmingly rejected an anti-abortion proposal that would have essentially banned travel for those seeking out-of-state abortions, allowing civil lawsuits stand against anyone who helps a local resident obtain an abortion. .

The “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn” ordinance was rejected by nearly 60% of voters.

“We hope to set the tone not only for the state, but for the nation that we will not penalize anyone for seeking health care when they are facing an extreme travel ban in their own state,” said Lindsay London, a nurse who helped found a group that opposed the attempt.

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Associated Press reporters Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this article.

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