Voters in Missouri last election approved a constitutional amendment that promised to undo the state's near-total abortion ban. The same day, they reelected a Republican supermajority to the state Legislature, including several of the same lawmakers who passed the abortion ban in 2019.
Now, GOP lawmakers are working to roll back some, if not all, of the abortion rights protected under the new amendment. “Time and time again, the supermajority will spend taxpayer money on trying to undo the will of the voters,” said Missouri Democratic Rep. Emily Weber, who has been filing abortion-rights legislation for the past four years.
Some Republicans have said enacting restrictions under the measure still adheres to voters' wishes. “I haven’t heard anyone seriously discuss taking away the rape and incest exception,” Republican House Speaker Jonathan Patterson said. “To regulate it as the amendment asks us to do, I think it’s an appropriate thing to do.”.
Any changes to directly undo the amendment passed by voters would need to go back on the ballot, he said. Republicans likely won’t face any pushback at the polls for once again going after abortion and could benefit politically in conservative states like Missouri, experts said.
Lawmakers from rural GOP strongholds have backing from their constituents to pursue such legislation and also face pressure to take a strong stand against abortion in order to survive primaries, said Mary Ziegler, a historian at the University of California, Davis, School of Law who studies abortion.
