The Freedom From Religion Foundation applauds yesterday’s ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court to return a referendum protecting abortion rights onto the state’s November ballot.
Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh — yes, a relative of the late talk radio host Rush Limbaugh — had ruled late last week that Missouri’s abortion rights ballot initiative didn’t comply with state law. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, another notorious Christian conservative and the son of John Ashcroft, took the unprecedented step of then decertifying Amendment 3 before an appeal could be concluded.
With 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10, being the final deadline to certify ballot initiatives, the Missouri Supreme Court had to hear arguments and render a decision the same day. The court’s seven members handed down a one-page ruling returning the question to the people less than three hours before the state’s deadline to print ballots. The opponents of Amendment 3 were represented by the Christian nationalist Thomas More Society. The intervenors defending Amendment 3 were Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the persevering group behind the ballot initiative, and a private plaintiff.
The ballot initiative will enshrine the right to abortion in the state Constitution. Missouri has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, banning legal abortion in almost all circumstances. Legislators there have even floated penalties for women who cross state lines to exercise their rights.
“Missouri’s women have been placed under the harshest abortion restriction in the nation, and have lost their fundamental rights. Amendment 3 provides a path to freedom,” says FFRF Legal Fellow and Missouri-licensed attorney Hirsh M. Joshi.
Nine other states will be joining Missouri in holding pro-abortion referenda in November: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota. Unfortunately, anti-abortion zealots aided by an extremist state court were able to sabotage Arkansas’ referendum this year. Abortion is largely or totally illegal right now not only in Missouri but in Arizona, Florida, South Dakota, as well as Arkansas, and illegal after 12 weeks in Nebraska. Some of the other states with abortion initiatives are taking protective measures to assure abortion remains accessible and lawful. Two-thirds of Americans support legal abortion in some or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.
“With this road bump removed, we are confident that voters in Missouri will assure that fundamental rights stripped from Missourians by the U.S. Supreme Court will be returned,” adds FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We urge our members and freethinkers to support these vital referenda and the groups behind them.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 40,000 members across the country, including more than 400 in Missouri. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
