Missouri Republicans are Ignoring the Will of the People...Again.

Apr 27, 2025

Missouri House Republicans are already trying to strip away rights to abortion access, which Missouri voters passed with 51.6% of the vote only five months ago (Suntrup, 2025). Women’s reproductive rights are not the only voter approved measures that Missouri Republicans are attempting to reverse. HB 567 would strip away the paid sick leave that 58% of Missourians voted for in November.

Disregarding the will of the people, and delivering on the wishes of lobbyists and special interests over the needs of Missourians is nothing new in the Show-Me-State. Here are a few examples:

In 2013, voters approved the city of St. Louis taking control of their own police department. This past March, the Missouri State Legislature voted to return the police department to state control (Ballentine, 2025).
In 2021, Governor Parson refused to implement federally funded Medicaid expansion in the state after 53% of Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative to expand it (Sullivan, 2021).
Another hit from the state legislature is the so-called “Right to Work” bills that would destroy unionization and collective bargaining. That’s another fight that we revisit every 10-20 years too (Rosenbaum, 2018).
Hell, we couldn’t even ban puppy mills in the state without the governor (a Democrat too!) caving to special interests and reversing the will of the people (Ballotpedia, 2011).
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Background on Recent Abortion Legislation

Missouri had one of the most extreme abortion trigger laws of all the red states that went into effect after the fall of Roe. v. Wade in 2022. Missouri’s “Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act” punished abortion care providers with class B felonies, except for cases of “medical emergencies”, which was not defined in the language of the Act. The Missouri anti-abortion law had no exceptions for cases of incest and rape. This legislation had put the lives of many women and teen girls at serious risk. From 2022 on, citizens from across the state fought hard to get our abortion rights back on the ballot, overcoming ridiculous lawsuits and gathering double the required number of signatures to get the initiative on the November 2024 ballot.

Amendment 3, which was passed by Missouri voters in 2024, restored abortion rights back to families, allowing abortions up to the point of fetal viability. Now, the republicans want to strip away the very rights we just voted for and enshrined in our constitution. Their proposal would only abortions for up to 12 weeks or if the baby has a condition that will not allow them to survive outside the womb (Suntrup, 2025).

Why Restricting Abortion Rights- for any “Reason” is Problematic

Medical Reasons

My number one position for supporting abortion rights is for medical reasons. The complications of pregnancies, whether the baby’s life or the mother’s life is at risk, are not talked about enough and have been stigmatized in our culture. Even if a law has exceptions for medical reasons, it is never clear enough to guarantee that a woman will get the care she needs, especially if a doctor could face jail time for providing that care. Knowing that something can go wrong is a deeply saddening and traumatic experience for families to discover in a doctor’s appointment. It is heart breaking that in some states, families are not allowed to make decisions about their own health because their government has labeled that immoral.

Inequitable

Restricting abortion access is inequitable because those with the means to travel to another state will have greater access to the healthcare they need. Poorer Missourians will be forced to carry out a pregnancy because they do not have the means to travel. Low income families are often in more need of an abortion than those who could more easily leave the state to seek an abortion.

Overturning the Will of the People is Anti-Democratic

We live in a democracy. The word “democracy” comes from the Greek words “demos” meaning people, and “kratos”, meaning power. The people exercise their power at the ballot box, and they made their choice to protect women’s rights when they passed Amendment 3 in November 2024. What is the Greek word for “lobbyist”?-They are the ones with all the power in the state of Missouri, and the Republicans are always happy to oblige! Missourians over and over again make their voices heard, just to be ignored and rejected by Missouri Republicans.

Real solutions for Reducing Abortion Rates

If anti-abortion lobbyists, Christian conservatives, and other right wing leaders wanted to eliminate abortions, the answer is not abolishment. That only makes abortions more lethal for women.

To really reduce abortions, we need to make having a baby and being a parent safer and more affordable. Instead of tax breaks for the wealthy, we can extend the child tax credit. Don’t cut medicaid, SNAP or CHIPS (something the Trump administration is planning). There already has been significant cuts to health and research grants at the federal level. These cuts will eliminate research for maternal mortality, endometriosis, and other pregnancy complications and will negatively impact pregnancy survival rates in the U.S. and around the world (Samantaroy, 2025). According to one pediatric research study, infant mortality rates in Texas increased by 12% in Texas after their abortion ban was implemented (Gemmill et al., 2024).

Times are tough. School shootings, the rising cost of living, a looming man-made economic disaster, and climate change are big concerns for many young parents. The millennial generation endured the Great Recession when they graduated college, the pandemic during their 30s, and are now facing a new uncertain future with this new tariff and trade war policy. It is not a comfortable time to be bringing a child into the world! The same party and the same advocates for ending abortion are also opposed to programs that can help young parents and their kids. It kind of makes me wonder if protecting the babies is really the point for these folks.