JEFFERSON CITY — Abortion opponents are organizing to counter efforts by reproductive rights activists to add abortion protections to the Missouri Constitution.
The group Missouri Stands with Women with the Missouri Ethics Commission on Friday.
On its website, the group says it will help lead the fight against initiative petitions aimed at “reversing Missouri’s pro-life laws and enshrining extreme abortion initiatives to the state’s constitution.â€
GOP attorney Edward Greim, with Kansas City-based Graves Garrett, is listed as treasurer of the group; Sam Lee, longtime lobbyist for Campaign Life Missouri, is listed as the group’s president.
first reported the campaign launch on Tuesday.
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The effort comes as major Missouri abortion-rights groups have remained silent on plans to collect signatures in 2024.
State courts in November finalized ballot wording for six potential questions abortion rights supporters could get behind.
Five of the six plans would allow the state to restrict abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy or fetal viability. One of the versions contains no gestational limits on abortion.
Supporters may opt to pursue a plan that would allow for restrictions on abortion after fetal viability, like a constitutional amendment Ohio voters approved in November.
The Missouri measures define fetal viability as the point in a pregnancy in which, “in the good faith judgment of a treating health professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.â€
Any pro-abortion rights campaign that emerges faces a tight May 5 deadline to submit the roughly 180,000 signatures it will take to make the ballot, which must come from six of eight Missouri congressional districts.
Groups such as Planned Parenthood and Abortion Action Missouri have refused to get behind a more moderate alternative being pushed by Jamie Corley, a Republican whose plan would allow abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.