JEFFERSON CITY — A Cole County Circuit Court judge ruled late Friday that the abortion-rights initiative petition was defective and shouldn’t have been certified for the Nov. 5 ballot, but did not immediately order it off the ballot until an appeals court could review the matter.
The ruling by Circuit Court Judge Christopher K. Limbaugh comes just days before the Sept. 10 statutory deadline for finalizing ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
Opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment, Amendment 3, told Limbaugh the proposal violated a constitutional requirement that measures adhere to one subject.
They also said that proponents, in violation of state law, did not include information in the text of the petition about which laws would be repealed if voters approve Amendment 3.
“It should not be on the ballot,” Mary Catherine Martin, attorney with the conservative Thomas More Society, argued earlier Friday during a hearing.
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Martin represented four anti-abortion plaintiffs: state Rep. Hannah Kelly, state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, anti-abortion activist Kathy Forck and Our Lady’s Inn President and CEO Peggy Forrest.
Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, in a statement late Friday called the ruling a “profound injustice to the initiative petition process and undermines the rights of the 380,000 Missourians who signed our petition demanding a voice on this critical issue.”
Sweet said the organization planned to appeal.
Earlier Friday, attorneys for the pro-abortion rights Missourians for Constitutional Freedom campaign said opponents were grasping at straws to block voters from deciding whether the amendment passes.
Politicians and special interest groups “are making a last-ditch effort to prevent Missourians from exercising their constitutional right to direct democracy,” Tori Schafer, attorney for the ACLU of Missouri, told reporters after arguments Friday.
Amendment 3 opponents pointed to the proposal’s list of various protections in arguing it violated the state’s single-subject rule.
The amendment creates the right to “make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to” abortion, childbirth, miscarriage care, postpartum care and respectful birthing conditions.
But Loretta Haggard, attorney for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said the law requires an initiative to have a “readily identifiable central purpose,” which she said is reproductive freedom.
With regard to stating laws that would be repealed if the measure is approved, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said in a pretrial brief that Amendment 3 “does not repeal any law or constitutional measure.”
The measure, the filing said, creates a new right to reproductive freedom and a new judicial review standard for reproductive freedom restrictions.
“Should Amendment 3 be approved by the voters,” the brief said, “its effects on other constitutional and statutory provisions will be determined over time, by the courts on a case-by-case basis, in light of concrete facts in particular cases.”
Limbaugh, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Mike Parson, served as Parson’s general counsel. He’s the son of a federal court judge and a cousin to the late radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
Friday’s lawsuit, filed last month, is separate from various other legal battles surrounding the abortion amendment.
On Thursday, in a separate matter, Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker rejected an official statement, required to be posted at polling sites, summarizing what “yes” and “no” votes would represent.
In a win for the abortion-rights side, Walker called the statement drafted by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft “unfair, inaccurate, insufficient and misleading” and wrote a new one.
Missouri banned most abortions immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. There is an exception for medical emergencies, but almost no abortions have occurred at Missouri facilities since then.
At least nine other states will consider constitutional amendments enshrining abortion rights this fall — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Dakota. Most would guarantee a right to abortion until fetal viability and allow it later for the health of the pregnant woman, which is what the Missouri proposal would do.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Updated at 9:36 p.m.