Missouri Judge Rules “Reproductive Freedom” Initiative Petition Is In “Blatant Violation” of State Law
Thomas More Society Attorneys Win Court Judgment Against Dangerous Missouri Initiative; Appeal expected.
(September 7, 2024– St. Louis, Missouri) On September 6, a Cole County, Missouri Circuit Court judge ruled against Missouri’s proposed Amendment 3, also known as the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative.” In the judgment released late Friday, the judge found that Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and Dr. Anna Fitz-James, who are leading the campaign effort to pass Amendment 3, ran afoul of state law. The judgment follows a lawsuit against Amendment 3 filed on August 22, 2024, by Thomas More Society attorneys, and rules favorably on the allegation that the Amendment 3 initiative petition violated state law by failing to provide voters with a list of Missouri laws that would be repealed, directly or by implication, if Amendment 3 were to pass.
“Fitz-James’ failure to include any statute or provision that will be repealed, especially when many of these statutes are apparent,” Missouri Circuit Court Judge Christopher Kirby Limbaugh found, “is in blatant violation of the sufficiency requirements” governing whether an initiative can be placed on the November 2024 general election ballot, under Missouri law. According to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and Dr. Anna Fitz-James’ own arguments on the record, the judge found that “they purposefully decided not to include even the most basic of statutes that would be repealed, at least in part, by Amendment 3.”
By failing to specify the laws and constitutional provisions it would repeal, directly or by implication, the initiative petition that led to proposed Amendment 3 violated both the Missouri Constitution and state statutes. Missouri Revised Statute Section 116.050 requires that signers of an initiative petition be informed of “[t]he full and correct text” of the initiative, which must “[i]nclude all sections of existing law or of the constitution which would be repealed by the measure.” Missourians signing the petition to put Amendment 3 on the ballot illegally did not see this information, despite the clear legal mandate requiring such information to be listed.
While Missouri Circuit Court Judge Limbaugh found that Amendment 3’s ballot petition violated state law, he deferred entering the relief such a violation requires—an injunction removing the Amendment from the ballot—pending review by a higher court before the statutory deadline for printing the ballots, which is Tuesday, September 10, 2024. Expedited review by that date is expected in either the Court of Appeals or the Missouri Supreme Court.
Mary Catherine Martin, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel, reacted: “Amendment 3 is designed to commit Missourians to allowing and funding an enormous range of decisions, even by children, far beyond just abortion. The court’s favorable decision relies on only the most glaring decision among a range of consequences hidden by the drafters of Amendment 3. We are confident the reviewing court will also hold that Missouri voters have a right to know what they are voting on, and to vote on one matter at a time. Thomas More Society’s mission is to defend life, family, and freedom—wherever they are threatened. Missouri’s Amendment 3 threatens all three. We will not allow Missourians to be deceived into signing away dozens of current laws that protect the unborn, pregnant women, parents, and children.”
The Thomas More Society lawsuit—filed on behalf of Missouri State Senator Mary Elizabeth Coleman, pro-life advocate Kathy Forck, State Rep. Hannah Kelly, and Our Lady’s Inn President and CEO Peggy Forrest—details that, as proposed, Amendment 3’s new “super-right” to “reproductive freedom” would repeal essentially all of Missouri’s state statutes and constitutional provisions regulating reproductive care and technologies, including all existing regulation of abortion, cloning, IVF for stem cell research, gender transition surgery, and genital mutilation. This includes the state’s constitutional amendment banning human cloning and IVF for the purposes of stem cell research, the “Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act,” the “Infant’s Protection Act”—the state’s partial-birth abortion law—along with state laws that protect unborn children at viability and from abortion based on discrimination (such race, sex, and Down syndrome), as well as the state’s prohibition on the abortion of late-term pain-capable unborn children. The proposed Amendment 3 would additionally repeal, directly or by implication, parental consent and notification laws regarding abortion, and the state’s recent ban on gender transition surgeries on minors.
Read the Judgment, filed September 6 by Missouri Circuit Court Judge Christopher Kirby Limbaugh, in Coleman, et al. v. Ashcroft, in the Circuit Court of Cole County – State of Missouri, here.
