Virginia and Nevada wrote abortion rights into their constitutions, results show, while abortion opponents won their only ballot fight of the night in the Gem State.
By EEW Magazine Online Editors
“Yes on 3” yard signs from Her Health, Her Future PAC, the main campaign backing Missouri’s Amendment 3, promoted the measure’s ban on gender transition surgeries for minors. Voters rejected the amendment Tuesday, keeping abortion legal in the state. (Jason Rosenbaum/St. Louis Public Radio)
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe spent the last days of the campaign touring the state. On Monday he held a press conference at a Kansas City airport, urging voters to bring back the abortion ban they struck down two years ago. Kehoe warned that a defeat would be “a sad day for Missouri.” On Tuesday, Missouri voters rejected Amendment 3. That leaves in place the abortion protections they added to the state constitution in 2024.
The Associated Press called the race at 10:18 p.m. Central time. With about 98% of the expected vote counted, 55.5% of voters opposed the measure, according to NBC News. The 2024 amendment passed with 51.6%.
Missouri was one of four states with abortion on the ballot. Voters in Virginia and Nevada approved constitutional protections. Idaho voters rejected an initiative that would have repealed one of the nation’s strictest bans. Since the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion protections in 2022, abortion law has become a state-by-state patchwork, and Tuesday’s results left voters drawing more of those lines themselves.
Amendment 3 would have banned abortion except in medical emergencies, cases of fetal anomaly, and rape or incest before 12 weeks of pregnancy. Supporters said those exceptions made it a moderate option. Opponents said the exceptions would be hard to use in practice and the 12-week limit was too restrictive, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
Lawmakers also attached language that would have written a ban on gender transition treatment for minors into the constitution. Missouri already bans that care by law. Abortion-rights supporters called the focus on that provision an attempt at misdirection.
James Lawson, campaign manager for Her Health, Her Future, the main campaign backing the amendment, called the result “a loss for women, a loss for children and a loss for life.” He blamed out-of-state donors for funding the opposition. Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said the fight was about patients getting care close to home.
In Virginia, about 62% of voters approved Ballot Question 1, which adds a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” to the state’s Bill of Rights. The amendment allows the state to regulate third-trimester abortion, but the state cannot prohibit an abortion that a physician finds medically necessary for the patient’s life or physical or mental health, or when the fetus is not viable.
Nevada voters approved Question 6 for the second straight election, which state law requires before a constitutional amendment takes effect. The measure writes the state’s existing law, which allows abortion through 24 weeks, into the constitution. It was passing with about 63% of the vote early Wednesday. Supporters far outraised opponents, whose two PACs raised less than $70,000 combined, The Nevada Independent reported.
Idaho went the other way. Proposition 1 would have legalized abortion up to fetal viability. More than 56% of voters rejected it, and the AP called the race at 12:35 a.m., according to the Idaho Capital Sun. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave $1 million to defeat it, KUER reported.
Mary Strow, communications director for Stop Prop 1, said Idaho remains “a state that values life and protects the unborn.” Melanie Folwell, whose organization put the measure on the ballot, called the result a “frankly gutting” loss.
Idaho’s law remains the subject of ongoing litigation. Doctors have said the ban lacks clear exceptions to protect the health of mothers. Opponents of Prop 1 argue that the state’s exemptions are enough to protect the mother’s life.