After a Missouri Supreme Court ruling September 10, Amendment 3 will officially be on the ballot for Missourians in November. Proponents and opponents now face less than two months until that vote. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley recently addressed the amendment at an anti-abortion event in Ozark.
The Cultural Impact Conference hosted by First Baptist Church in Ozark, is described as a “call to the church to act decisively to protect the lives of the unborn.”
Sen. Hawley, who will also be on the ballot this November, spoke early in the conference and railed against the amendment. He spent some of his time discussing abortion but focused much of his speech connecting Amendment 3 to gender-affirming care for transgender youth, healthcare practices largely restricted by the State of Missouri in 2023.
“This is about an effort to come into our schools,” Sen. Hawley said of the proposed amendment, “behind your backs without your knowledge, to tell our kids that there’s something wrong with them and to give them drugs that will sterilize them for life, to push them towards procedures that will fundamentally change their bodies, irrevocably for life and there will be nothing we can do about it.”
Tori Schafer, lawyer at the ACLU of Missouri representing Missourians for Constitutional Freedom a pro-Amendment 3 group, described Sen. Hawley’s statements as “false” and “outlandish”, and said they were meant to “distract us from what this amendment is actually about: protecting the right to abortion and letting Missourians make their own health care decisions."
In a statement to KSMU, Democratic competitor for Sen. Hawley’s senate seat, Lucas Kunce, said Sen. Hawley is lying about the citizen-led effort for “one simple reason – he is terrified of sharing the ballot with it.”
Follow this link to the approved full text of Amendment 3. Find certified ballot measure information at the Missouri Secretary of State's website.
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