Beyond the pivotal presidential election last year, voters in almost a dozen states had to consider the even more pivotal question of enshrining abortion into their state constitutions.
Various wealthy progressives backed efforts to place abortion ballot measures before voters in 2024, offering them the chance to create a purported right to murder babies. While the states of Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota rejected those measures, the states of Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York ultimately approved them.
Among the closest races was in Missouri, a deep-red state where Republicans have controlled the state legislature for over two decades, but where voters narrowly approved Amendment 3.
That ballot measure, which some 51.6 percent of voters supported and 48.4 percent of voters opposed, thereby placed a “fundamental right” to abortion in the Missouri state constitution.
But months later, Missouri now appears to be the first state with an abortion ballot measure that will try to repeal the provision. Republicans in the state legislature have approved House Joint Resolution 73, which would indeed remove Amendment 3 from the state constitution.
While that may seem like a positive development, the text of House Joint Resolution 73 does not merely remove Amendment 3. The new ballot measure, which could be presented to voters in 2026, also introduces protections for abortions in cases like “fetal anomaly, rape, or incest.”
That means abortion would merely be enshrined in the state constitution to a lesser extent.
“Rather than simply removing the abominable Amendment 3 from the Missouri state constitution, House Joint Resolution 73 actively codifies abortion in some cases,” one analysis from the Foundation to Abolish Abortion cautioned. “No children should be legally executed for the sins of their fathers, and sickness or disability are not reasons for execution either.”
House Joint Resolution 73 would allow abortions through most of the first trimester in the cases of rape and incest. The text also tries to distinguish between a “disability” in a preborn baby and a “fetal anomaly,” allowing the murder of the child in the latter case but not in the former case.
Should Republicans be doing more to end abortion?
Major pro-life establishment organizations in Missouri lauded the move. Missouri Right to Life, the state affiliate of National Right to Life, celebrated the ballot measure while still advancing in the state legislature, even publicly calling the effort “life-saving and life-affirming.”
Other national pro-life establishment groups issued similar celebratory remarks.
One statement from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America described the new ballot measure as a “pro-life amendment to save lives, protect parents’ rights, and safeguard women and girls.”
Missouri Republicans and their allies in the pro-life establishment could have merely issued a ballot measure to reverse Amendment 3. That effort passed with incredibly narrow margins last year, largely because pro-abortion financiers spent eight times more than the anti-abortion side.
In other words, Amendment 3 could be overturned with a more robust anti-abortion campaign next year, and with the added benefit of hindsight among anti-abortion voters. But the pro-life Republican establishment instead burdened House Joint Resolution 73 with pro-abortion components that merely enshrine somewhat less child sacrifice into the state constitution.
That move will offer a moral crisis to many anti-abortion voters in the state of Missouri.
Some citizens who may have otherwise knocked doors, made donations, or advocated for the overturn of Amendment 3 may reluctantly vote for House Joint Resolution 73, but they may have their zeal to enact that ballot measure severely tampered. Others may entirely refuse to vote for House Joint Resolution 73 out of a disdain for supporting baby murder in any form.
“While many of these Republican lawmakers and pro-life lobbyists may think they are employing prudential strategy in crafting a ballot measure they believe will pass, in the hope of mitigating the evil of Amendment 3, they are violating commands from God to exercise judgment without partiality,” the Foundation to Abolish Abortion added. “They are practicing another kind of child sacrifice by withholding legal protection from some children in the hopes of saving others.”
These lawmakers and lobbyists should have learned that their political four-dimensional chess is already a proven failure, as shown by the passage of Amendment 3 in their deep-red state.
The rhetoric from pro-life groups like Missouri Right to Life last year against Amendment 3 refrained from appealing to the consciences of anti-abortion Christian and conservative voters. Rather than simply warning that abortion murders babies, the organization centered their rhetoric on parental rights, protecting women, and other tertiary effects of Amendment 3 in an apparent effort to build a broader coalition against the ballot measure. That left anti-abortion voters, who would have otherwise voted to save babies, needlessly misinformed and confused.
Beyond their evident failures in the electoral realm, the pro-life establishment in Missouri has refused to consider that God clearly does not approve of child sacrifice enshrined in state constitutions, and conservative Christians who fear God are inclined in the exact same way.
In the name of prudence and pragmatism, the exact strategy they have employed to mitigate evil will now certainly result in continued evil, whether through the enshrinement of House Joint Resolution 73, or even the likelihood that their efforts to overturn Amendment 3 will not work.
The defeat of pro-abortion forces in our land will not occur through cowardly and compromised leadership. The defeat of pro-abortion forces must occur through a bold and biblical refusal to make peace with child sacrifice. Only the latter can rally Christians to the cause of preborn babies legally murdered under cover of law, and now with the protection of state constitutions.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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