Missouri Supreme Court Rejects Secretary of State’s Abortion Language Summary Appeal

In a win for abortion rights supporters, the Missouri Supreme Court on Monday rejected GOP Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s challenge to an appeals court decision that determined his ballot summary language for an abortion rights amendment was biased. 

In September, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem rejected Ashcroft’s ballot language summary of the abortion rights ballot initiative, ruling that: “certain phrases included in the Secretary’s summary statement are problematic in that they are either argumentative or do not fairly describe the purposes or probable effect of the initiative.” 

Ashcroft’s summary had described one of the reproductive rights amendments, which would enshrine the right to abortion into the state constitution, as permitting “dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions.” 

Beetem rewrote the measure, stating instead that the amendment guarantees the “right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception.”

“Today, the courts upheld Missourians’ constitutional right to direct democracy over the self-serving attacks of politicians desperately seeking to climb the political ladder,” ACLU of Missouri said in a statement. “The decision from Missouri Court of Appeals is a complete rebuke of the combined efforts from the Attorney General and Secretary of State to interfere and deny Missourian’s their right to initiative process.”

The state Supreme Court also rejected a case challenging the estimated cost proposal of the reproductive rights ballot initiatives. Republicans filed a lawsuit in August that challenged Republican Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick’s budget proposal, claiming that the initiative would cost far more than Fitzpatrick had proposed in his fiscal summary.