By Sarah Neely

Jefferson City, MO — Operation Rescue has reported again and again about the catastrophic effects witnessed in Kansas after voters failed to pass a pro-life amendment in 2022, leaving abortion enshrined through all nine months of pregnancy in the state constitution.

Since then, common sense protections have been steadily stripped away while the number of abortion businesses increase, many offering abortion into the second trimester. In 2022, alone, Kansas saw a 57% increase in abortion.

Now, another state faces the same downward spiral.

Last November, Missouri voters failed to stop the passage of Amendment 3, which enshrined a right to abortion in their state constitution. While Kansas was the first state to hold a referendum on abortion after the fall of Roe, Missouri was the first abortion-free state to face a similar referendum – and lose established protections for the preborn. 

The fallout was immediate. While it took Planned Parenthood almost a year to launch a legal attack on pro-life laws in Kansas, it took less than 24 hours after the Missouri amendment passed for the abortion giant to file a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the state’s abortion ban as well as other protective statutes, like requiring abortion facilities to be licensed, requiring only medical doctors to perform abortions, and giving women 72 hours before undergoing an abortion in order to deter coercion. 

By February 2025 — just three months later — abortions were set to resume in this once abortion-free state, all protected by court-ordered injunctions until Planned Parenthood’s full case goes to trial in 2026. 

“We know this pattern all too well,” says Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “The abortion lobby pushes these amendments with dangerously ambiguous language, falsely reassuring voters it only wants to protect ‘freedom.’ But the abortion lobby only ever protects one thing: unregulated, unfettered, abortion – and always through all nine months.”

In May, another radical lawsuit was launched against the state. Right by You, a pro-abortion group that helps minors obtain abortions, is challenging Missouri’s parental notification laws, arguing that it violates Amendment 3.

In the months building up to the November 2024 election, Missouri Right to Life and others sounded the alarm that Amendment 3 would strip away parental rights. In fact, months before the vote, the Missouri Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood for trafficking minors across state lines without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

The suit came in response to a video published by Project Veritas showing Planned Parenthood employees explaining how they “bypass” Missouri’s parental consent laws. In the video, employees speak to a man who came in the clinic to find out how to obtain an abortion for a 13-year-old girl. He states more than once that this girl is not his child and that her parents cannot find out. “We never tell the parents anything,” one employee says. “She’s an adult in our clinics.”

“Despite this shocking lawsuit and the adamant warnings from other pro-life groups within the state, Missouri voters clearly didn’t take these red flags seriously enough,” adds Newman. “And now, as predicted, parental consent laws are under threat.”

However, Missouri voters may get another chance to restore all previous pro-life protections. On April 15, the Missouri House voted in favor of another ballot measure for the upcoming election year – one that will put Missouri back on the list of abortion-free states. 

The proposal, HJR73, still has to pass in the Senate before appearing on the ballot – and voters still have to show up at the polls. However, if successful, the amendment will reinstate near-total protection for children in the womb with narrow abortion exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal anomalies. Cases of rape or incest are also included, with abortion limited to the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

As of May 12, there are five days left in this legislative session.

“If this amendment makes the ballot and passes,” adds Newman, “Missouri voters will not only restore life-saving protections for preborn children, they will also show the nation that these dangerous amendments shrouded in ambiguous language and designed to allow abortion through all nine months can be overturned and, ultimately, defeated. From someone living in a once pro-life state now devastated by unfettered abortion: Don’t waste this chance, Missouri.”

This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Chief Operating Officer for Operation Rescue.”