JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — When Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe campaigned for office last year, he declared, “the pro-life community does not need quitters” if abortion returned to the state.

At a closed-door ceremony inside his Capitol office last month, the Republican chief executive signed the first measure intended to help attack abortion access after voters in November overturned the state’s ban on the procedure.

The new law handed Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a staunch abortion opponent himself, a powerful new weapon. He immediately deployed it.

Within an hour, Bailey’s office appealed a temporary court decision in Jackson County that had allowed legal abortions to resume in Missouri for the first time since 2022 after voters enshrined a right to the procedure in the state constitution. Before Kehoe signed the new law, Bailey would have potentially had to wait months to appeal; now, he can challenge temporary orders right away.

The new law marks the latest salvo in the ongoing fight over abortion access in Missouri.

For the past five months, Republican lawmakers have weighed an onslaught of bills that would overturn the voter-approved abortion rights amendment, called Amendment 3. Their top priority, a proposed ballot question that would reenact an abortion ban, is one vote away from reaching the ballot.

But the law signed by Kehoe represents a relatively new target for Republican lawmakers and officials: judges who rule against them. The immediate impact could imperil the February ruling that cleared a path for abortions to begin in the state.

“The attorney general being able to…intervene and appeal these injunctions that these leftist judges are placing on the laws that we put in place is a huge victory,” Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican who sponsored the bill, said in a video on social media.

Bailey’s office did not respond to a request to comment on this story.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, center, signs into law legislation that allowed Attorney General Andrew Bailey to immediately appeal a ruling that cleared a path for abortions to resume. Rep. Ben Keathley, a Chesterfield Republican, left, and Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican, right, stood behind him. Missouri Governor's Office

In the long term, another part of the law that takes effect in August restricts judges from rewriting misleading language on measures that voters see at the ballot box. If ballot language is challenged in court, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins will now get three opportunities to write his own before the courts can redraft the wording.

Supporters argue that state officials should have more power to craft the wording that appears on the ballot. But critics, who have dubbed the new law the “Let Politicians Lie Act,” argue that it will empower the secretary of state to manipulate voters through deceptive ballot language — an issue the previous secretary of state was recently sued for.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my Republican colleagues use the term ‘activist judges.’ They constantly accuse the courts of overstepping,” said House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat. “So does it surprise me that the legislature has come in and done that to the courts? No, not at all.”

The legislation quickly generated a lawsuit that argues the law violates the state constitution in several ways. But even if the law is struck down, the continued legislative debates and legal wrangling have instilled fear and confusion over where abortion access currently stands.

“It is confusing and I think that’s by design,” said Sen. Patty Lewis, a Kansas City Democrat. “But abortion is legal in the state of Missouri currently and we have to continue to share that message to folks.”

Incendiary ballot language

The anti-abortion community’s focus on the judicial branch — and the wording of ballot measures — is also likely by design.

When a coalition of abortion rights groups first began the campaign to legalize the procedure in 2023, top Republican officials moved to render the effort politically toxic.

Then-Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, for example, proposed incendiary language for the ballot question that would have asked voters to “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions.”

The courts struck down the effort and a Cole County judge rewrote the language that Ashcroft had crafted. An appeals court, which upheld the ruling, ruled that Ashcroft’s ballot summaries were “replete with politically partisan language.”

Now, under the new law, courts will have less power to rewrite the language that will appear on ballot questions. If a court finds a ballot summary to be misleading or insufficient, the law will give the secretary of state three opportunities to submit new ones before it can be rewritten by a judge.

Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City-based attorney who sued to strike down the new law, said in an interview that the legislation takes away any incentive for the secretary of state to draft fair and accurate language.

“It allows the secretary of state to submit their worst product first,” he said. “Because you can just prepare something that is politically-charged, insufficient, unfair and see if you can get it to fly.”

However, Senate Majority Leader Tony Luetkemeyer, a Parkville Republican, framed the legislation as a way to give statewide elected officials more of a say over the ballot language.

“It doesn’t completely take away the power of the courts to rewrite ballot language,” he said. “It just says if the court finds fault initially with the legislature’s language, that we have other representatives of the people that have an opportunity to then weigh in and try to correct those mistakes.”

As Republican state lawmakers weigh a series of proposals to weaken or overturn Amendment 3, large groups of abortion rights supporters have traveled to the state Capitol.

Over the past few weeks, individuals from across the state have protested votes in the House, held rallies on the Capitol steps and shared harrowing stories about losing access to reproductive care in the Capitol rotunda.

In front of the Missouri Supreme Court building last week, Gina Meyer from Lee’s Summit was among the people who spoke against the measures. Meyer told a crowd of people that Missourians passed Amendment 3 to make their own health care decisions without government or religious restrictions.

“Please respect our vote and our constitutional right to religious freedom — whether you’re religious or not,” Meyer said.

Where does access stand?

While the changes to the ballot process won’t take effect until August, the provision that allowed Bailey to challenge the abortion rights court ruling took immediate effect upon Kehoe’s signature.

Bailey appealed two preliminary injunctions, both issued by Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang. Together, the rulings blocked a series of longstanding laws that have prevented abortion providers from offering the procedure, such as a 72-hour waiting period and licensing requirements.

Those court rulings opened a pathway for abortion providers to partially resume care in the state. Another lawsuit, filed last week by Right By You, a reproductive health care nonprofit, seeks to overturn another Missouri law that requires minors to get parental approval before getting an abortion.

Despite Bailey’s appeal, access to procedural abortions is available at Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis. In February, the Planned Parenthood affiliate in Kansas City performed the first elective abortion in the state since the vote.

In the months since, Planned Parenthood’s midtown Kansas City clinic has offered abortion appointments “every couple of weeks” and provided care as recently as last week, said Emily Wales, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

However, abortion providers are still fighting state officials to restore complete access and medication abortions remain inaccessible, causing “frustration and confusion for patients,” Wales said.

Even with abortions legal in Missouri, some Missourians have still decided to schedule appointments in neighboring Kansas, she said.

When asked how the new law might impact access to care, Wales said that Bailey has fought to block both the passage and implementation of Amendment 3 “every step of the way.” Now lawmakers are “helping him by rewriting the rules,” she said.

“It’s clear this is a coordinated effort among our elected officials to undermine the will of the people, upend the legal process and ignore the state constitution,” Wales said. “We will fight back — in every court, for every patient – to ensure access to the care they deserve.”

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—The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed reporting.

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