Missouri Republicans Are Trying to Repeal Abortion Rights by Leaning Into Anti-Trans Sentiment

They placed a new amendment on the November ballot, also called Amendment 3, that would restore Missouri’s abortion ban while allowing limited exceptions but also constitutionally prohibit gender transition care for minors — though the state has banned surgeries and new prescriptions of puberty blockers and hormones by law since August 2023.

In 2024, a yes vote on Amendment 3 protected abortion rights. In November, voters will again be asked to vote yes on Amendment 3 — this time to take them away.

Yet supporters want voters focused on the specter of children being used as lab guinea pigs, not the abortion rights the amendment would repeal. A new billboard in the St. Louis suburbs urges them to vote yes and “ban transgender surgeries for minors.”

A website for the political action committee behind the campaign, Her Health, Her Future — whose treasurer is Missouri first lady Claudia Kehoe — declares “OUR CHILDREN are not LAB EXPERIMENTS.” It says Amendment 3 would protect children from “harmful, sterilizing medical procedures” and restore “common sense health and safety standards” for women’s health clinics.

Neither message explicitly says that the amendment would repeal the constitutional right to abortion that Missourians approved two years ago.