Over 800 medical professionals in Missouri are endorsing Amendment 3, a ballot initiative upheld that would reverse the state’s near-total abortion ban.
“Politicians are not more qualified than doctors to help our patients make decisions around their reproductive health care,” Dr. Betsy Wickstrom, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Kansas City, said at a press conference on Monday. “I think we can all agree that politicians should not have a say in our exam rooms. Voting yes on Amendment 3 will prevent that.”
Also known as the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” Amendment 3 would change Missouri’s constitution to explicitly protect “reproductive freedom,” defined as “the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care.”
“The right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, interfered with, delayed or otherwise restricted,” the measure reads. It also states that the state government “shall not discriminate against persons providing or obtaining reproductive healthcare.”
The initiative was first introduced by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and has faced a long and arduous path to the ballot. After gathering nearly 380,000 signatures from Missourians (constitutional amendment initiatives need a minimum of 171,592 to be included on the ballot), Amendment 3 was certified by Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft in early August.
Just days later. however, two Republican lawmakers sued Ashcroft for certifying the amendment, marking the first of several last-ditch attempts to block Amendment 3.
They nearly succeeded. In early September, a Cole County judge ruled the amendment violated state law because it failed to list what specific laws would be repealed if it passed, prompting Ashcroft to reverse his original decision and decertify Amendment 3. The decertification sparked outrage among reproductive rights advocates across the state.
The case was ultimately sent to Missouri Supreme Court, which ruled earlier this month that Amendment 3 should be included on the ballot in November after all.
In 2022, Missouri enacted a near-total abortion ban. All abortions are illegal in the state, except in cases of medical emergency when there is a risk of “irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function,” a broad definition that has left both patients and doctors in limbo.
“Any person who knowingly performs or induces an abortion of an unborn child in violation of this subsection shall be guilty of a class B felony, as well as subject to suspension or revocation of his or her professional license,” Missouri’s abortion law reads.
Over the last two years, Wickstrom has seen many patients turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel out of state to get the care they need. She’s witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of the abortion ban on her patients, some of whom have heart disease and are at risk for complicated pregnancies. Even if a patient were “tugging for breath, literally suffocating in my exam room” and needed to terminate their pregnancy, by law she couldn’t help them,