October 29, 2026:

Missouri Republicans are hoping that 2026 midterm election voters will revoke the abortion rights they chose to write into the state constitution just two years ago.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended the constitutional right to an abortion, many red states, including Missouri, enacted bans. In 2024, Missouri voters approved a ballot measure that constitutionally enshrined the right to abortion up to fetal viability in their state. 

Now, Missouri Republicans are trying to reinstate an abortion ban. They’ve drafted a new constitutional amendment that would repeal the Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment approved by voters in 2024. 

Just as the 2022 amendment was called Amendment 3, so is the 2026 Amendment. A “yes” on 3 in 2022 was a vote for abortion rights. In 2026, a “yes” on 3 is a vote against them. 

I’m sure that won’t confuse anyone. 

An anti-abortion measure in disguise

To persuade voters to pass Amendment 3, Missouri Republicans had to solve a conundrum: If Missourians decided to vote for abortion rights in 2024, why would they change their minds only two years later?

If the ballot measure said, “This measure repeals the abortion rights you just voted for,” presumably a lot of people would vote no. 

So the initial ballot summary explaining Amendment 3 to voters didn’t frame the measure that way (the summary is what voters actually see on their ballot next to the yes/no boxes—not the full language of the amendment). Instead, it was written to sound like it provided abortion rights. 

In the initial draft language of Amendment 3, Republicans conveniently left out the part about how the amendment would repeal what Missourians voted for in 2024 and re-ban abortion. 

The first bullet point said the amendment would “ensure women’s safety during abortions.” Sounds great, right? Another said the state would “ensure parental consent” for minors to get an abortion. Parental consent was already the law in Missouri, but okay. 

The original language additionally claimed that Amendment 3 “guarantee women’s medical care for emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages.” These guys really took an abortion ban and described it as a list of occasions when abortion would be allowed. 

It also promised to “protect children” from gender transition. 

What do trans kids have to do with abortion? Literally nothing. But gender-affirming care is this election cycle’s (manufactured) hot-button issue, so the Missouri GOP crammed it in there to apparently sow more confusion. 

GOP scramble to rewrite Amendment 3

You will not be shocked that the state was sued over this deceptive language.

In July 2025, the ACLU of Missouri sued the state for its “misleading and inaccurate” summary of Amendment 3. Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green agreed, calling the ballot summary “insufficient and unfair” in September of that year and ordered a rewrite. 

Republican Sec. State Denny Hoskins took a crack at revising the language. His ballot summary said the amendment would “amend Article I, section 36, approved in 2024.”

That’s the abortion rights amendment voters passed in 2024. But how many voters know their constitution down to article and section number? 

And “amend”? That’s not what the ballot initiative would do. It would repeal the abortion rights written into the constitution two years ago.

Judge Green sent this version back, too, saying it still didn’t tell voters that the rights they’d approved in 2024 would get wiped out. So Hoskins tried again, and this time, the judge signed off.

The approved language states that Amendment 3 will “repeal Article I, section 36.” In October 2025, Green signed off on that one. 

In other words, the judge made the GOP disclose that Amendment 3 will repeal the 2022 amendment. But what, exactly, were they repealing? Many voters wouldn’t be able to tell. 

Cue: another appeal. 

In December 2025, the Missouri Court of Appeals agreed that “using plain language was necessary to fairly inform voters of the effects of the measure.” 

This time, instead of sending the amendment back to the attorney general, the court just wrote the language itself.

Two courts. Months of drafting and redrafting. All to get an anti-abortion ballot to say what the amendment would actually do: repeal the Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment..

Here’s the final language of Amendment 3 that voters in Missouri will see when they head to the polls. 

The first line says the measure would “repeal the 2024 voter-approved Amendment providing reproductive healthcare rights, including abortion through fetal viability.”

Then, the ballot summary lays out the specific consequences of a yes vote. If Missouri’s Amendment 3 is approved it would: “Allow abortions for rape and incest (under twelve-weeks’ gestation), emergencies, and fetal anomalies; Allow legislation regulating abortion; Ensure parental consent for minors’ abortions; Prohibit gender transition procedures for minors.”

Ballot candy

Yes, Amendment 3 would ban gender-affirming medical care for minors. And that’s the point that the “Yes” campaign has been leading with. 

Yard signs urging voters to support the measure say, “Yes on 3 Ban Transgender Surgeries for Minors.” Abortion appears nowhere on them. 

Critics call this kind of thing “ballot candy”—something popular that’s tossed into ballot initiatives to help an unpopular thing go down easier.

Missouri Republicans—who can’t take no for an answer—are trying to trick voters into repealing their constitutional abortion rights by throwing trans kids under the bus.

This explainer was adapted from a Baby Boom! Lawyered podcast episode published on Oct. 23, 2026. Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts.

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