It’s a quirk of Missouri politics that the same solid majority of voters who can’t bring themselves to cast a vote for any politician with a “D” next to their name will turn around and vote, again and again, for ballot measures instituting Democratic policies that are opposed by most elected Republicans.

The approval of Missouri’s Amendment 3 on Tuesday is by no means the only example of this phenomenon, but it’s arguably the most important one to date. By rolling back the extremist abortion ban imposed by the state’s Republican politicians in 2022 after the fall of Roe v. Wade, the voters stamped into our state constitution the simple, crucial principle that what happens inside citizens’ bodies is not the business of government under most circumstances.

The caveat there is because — contrary to the storm of bald-faced lies spread by opponents of the amendment — the measure does not forestall all restrictions on abortion access in all circumstances. Its language restores unfettered abortion rights before fetal viability while specifying that the state can impose restrictions after that point, which is the same standard that existed under Roe.

That standard is the right one but it inevitably cracks the door for bad-faith shenanigans by legislative Republicans. The General Assembly’s GOP supermajority will no doubt work to undermine the voters’ verdict on this issue as it did on Medicaid expansion, labor rights, puppy mills, political ethics and more. Defenders of reproductive rights must gear up for the inevitable string of court fights going forward.

The measure that passed with almost 52% of the Missouri vote Tuesday establishes those rights as fundamental under the state constitution. But how that general principle is translated into specific state statutes will be for the Legislature and the courts to decide.

The almost complete 2022 ban that was imposed from the moment of conception — with, cruelly, no exceptions for rape or incest — will be, by definition, unconstitutional in its current form as soon as the amendment goes into effect Dec. 5. But other laws on the Missouri books designed to impede abortion access in other ways will require legal battles to settle the question of whether they comport with the amendment.

As the Post-Dispatch’s Michele Munz reported last week, Planned Parenthood’s two Missouri regional organizations filed suit on Wednesday, just hours after Amendment 3’s passage, to formally challenge a series of previous state laws that, they argue, are no longer valid under the new amendment.

Those laws were precursors to Missouri’s outright ban, chipping at abortion rights by imposing medically unnecessary hurdles designed not to protect women but to harass them and their abortion providers. They include a mandatory 72-hour waiting period, a requirement that an abortion can be performed only by the same doctor who initially saw the patient, and onerous building specifications that abortion providers must meet.

Challenging those and other laws immediately is necessary because court decisions are the only viable way to get them off the books. It’s not like this state’s politicians are going to willingly repeal previously implemented abortion restrictions just because they are now in violation of the state constitution — not after the scorched-Earth efforts they pursued to derail Amendment 3 from the start, which included misrepresenting the proposal’s provisions, conjuring up imaginary fiscal data and even trying to move the goalposts on how ballot initiatives are approved.

Cleaning up the statutes is only part of what reproductive-rights proponents must focus on now. When the Legislature’s Republican supermajority gavels into session next year, it’s a virtual certainty the anti-choice caucus will quickly start testing the new boundaries with legislation seeking all kinds of abortion restrictions that will have to be challenged in court.

Passing Amendment 3 wasn’t the end of the fight for reproductive rights in Missouri, but the start of it.

©2024 STLtoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.