Future of Missouri abortion ban in question following state Supreme Court ruling
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Missouri’s abortion ban could be in place again after a decision by the Missouri Supreme Court.
The justices ordered a Kansas City judge to lift her rulings and over turn the ban. The court released the order Tuesday afternoon and sided with Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
Bailey and his team argued the judge had not met the legal standard to strike down the ban.
Voters approved the constitutional right to an abortion last year, but the issue had to make its way through Missouri courts to be permanently overturned.
Abortion rights groups weighed in on the decision Tuesday afternoon.
“Attorney General Andrew Bailey and anti-abortion politicians in Jeff City have once again weaponized our political system against Missourians. What’s really clear here is the confusion this will cause among patients was the whole point. However, our coalition has dealt with setbacks like this before, and we know how to people accessing care despite a hostile political environment. Missourians proved at the ballot box that what we want is access to abortion. This is not over, and I’m confident that ultimately abortion care will continue in Missouri,” Mallory Schwarz, Executive Director of Abortion Action of Missouri, said.
The ruling is in addition to a move Missouri Republican lawmakers made earlier this month. They approved a new referendum that would seek to repeal the amendment and instead ban most abortions with exceptions for rape an incest.
Voters could vote on the newly proposed constitutional amendment in November 2026, or possibly sooner.
Republican senators used a series of rare procedural moves to cut off discussion by opposing Democrats before ing the proposed abortion-rights revision by a 21-11 vote. The measure ed the Republican-led House last month.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nationwide right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, it triggered a Missouri law to take effect banning most abortions. But abortion-rights activists gathered initiative petition signatures in an attempt to reverse that.
Last November, Missouri voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability, generally considered sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy. The amendment also allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women.
The new measure would seek the repeal the abortion-rights amendment and instead allow abortions only for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. It also would prohibit gender transition surgeries, hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors, which already are barred under state law.
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