How Missouri Republicans could try to end state's new abortion rights.

[In It to Win It]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

(Archived)

51,549 votes.

That’s how narrowly Missouri approved Amendment 3, overturning the state’s abortion ban and enshrining reproductive rights into the state constitution. With more than 2.9 million ballots cast, the measure passed 51.74% to 48.26%, according to unofficial results.

Republicans, eyeing such a close result, will try to overturn the state’s new right to abortion. It’s just a question of how.

GOP lawmakers next year will almost certainly attempt to advance constitutional amendments that would undo Tuesday’s vote. The General Assembly, under firm Republican control, can place amendments on the ballot with a simple majority vote.

What a possible proposal would look like remains unclear. Anti-abortion lawmakers would debate what shape an amendment should take, whether it should fully overturn Amendment 3 or make some kind of modest gesture toward access, such as allowing abortion within the first few weeks of pregnancy.

But even before Amendment 3’s passage, Republicans were already signaling they would directly fight a victory for the measure.

“People will be given an opportunity to vote again,” Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican and staunch abortion opponent, said before the election.

[lastlib]

1. Effing basturds....

Several times, the people have voted on amendments, referenda, and other questions, only to have the Repuglikan legislature not like it and overturn it with their own vote. I despise them all. The official state motto is "The will of the people is the supreme law." The repuglikan motto is "Oh, yeah? Hold my beer."