Missouri supreme court keeps ballot measure to protect abortion rights

Missouri residents will vote in November on a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution, after the state supreme court ruled Tuesday the measure could be put to voters.

The decision marked the culmination of a heated weeks-long battle over the ballot measure, which proposes to protect people’s “fundamental right to reproductive freedom”, including the right to birth control and to an abortion up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion opponents had challenged the measure as invalid, arguing that it violated Missouri law because it did not list the existing laws that it would repeal.

The measure, they wrote in court documents, “is a proposal to repeal Missouri’s ban on abortion that does not disclose to voters that it will repeal Missouri’s ban on abortion. It illegally induces Missouri voters to do more than they wish to.”

Missouri currently bans abortion except in medical emergencies.