Chicago – September 22, 2025
A Missouri judge has struck down a ballot summary for an anti-abortion amendment backed by Republican state lawmakers while concluding that it presented an unfair and insufficient description to voters.
Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Friday that the ballot summary must be rewritten, but he rejected a request by abortion-rights advocates to block the proposed constitutional amendment from going to voters.
The judge said the summary prepared by Republican lawmakers failed to inform voters that the new measure would repeal an abortion-rights amendment adopted by voters last year. He directed the secretary of state’s office to write a new summary.
The ruling marks the latest in a series of twists and turns in Missouri’s abortion policies over the past three years.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nationwide right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, that triggered a Missouri law to take effect banning abortions “except in cases of medical emergency.” But abortion-rights activists then gathered initiative petition signatures to put their own measure on the ballot.
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. That measure, known as Amendment 3, also allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women and creates a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” that includes birth control, prenatal and postpartum care and “respectful birthing conditions.”
