JEFFERSON CITY — A campaign to legalize abortion in Missouri next year remained in question Tuesday as activists gauged possible support from national groups and struggled to come up with an initiative to unify behind.
Any successful ballot question would cost millions of dollars. The timeline will be tight — supporters must submit roughly 170,000 signatures to the secretary of state by May 8 to make the August or November ballots.
And while the Missouri Supreme Court finalized the wording of six ballot initiatives on Monday, activists will have to settle on which proposals to pursue.
“For any campaign to move forward, it will have to assess what’s possible on this timeline,†said Mallory Schwarz, director of Abortion Action Missouri.
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s attempt for the high court to consider ballot summaries he wrote. Lower courts had already rejected Ashcroft’s proposals — the Western District Court of Appeals called them “replete with politically partisan language.â€
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The Supreme Court’s decision put the issue squarely back in the hands of activists hoping to get an issue on the ballot next year.
But activists on the specifics so far.
Five of the six measures approved Monday would allow the state to restrict abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy or fetal viability; one plan would not have any such limit.
Some activists support the least restrictions possible. One opposes viability limits altogether. And a separate effort, with six other ballot initiatives still being considered in court, is focused on legalizing abortion through just 12 weeks of pregnancy. That effort has already begun collecting signatures.
Tom Bastian, spokesman for the ACLU of Missouri, didn’t answer a question Tuesday about whether signature collection would begin now that the Supreme Court settled the ballot language.
“The courts’ repeated rejection of the Secretary of State’s arguments verify that his case has no legal bearing but, instead, shows he will sacrifice Missourians’ constitutional rights to gain the support and funding of special interest organizations to advance his political career,†he said in an email.
Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ opposes viability limits altogether, Julie Lynn, spokeswoman for the local Planned Parenthood chapter, said Tuesday.
And Schwarz, the Abortion Action chief, said her group supports the most expansive measure possible in 2024.
She said the threat to a “true abortion rights access campaign has been state leadership hellbent on denying people the fundamental right to democracy.â€
Jamie Corley, director of the Missouri Women and Family Research Fund, is leading the campaign for a 12-week limit.
Her plan would also allow abortion before fetal viability in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or risk to the health or safety of the female.
She said her group believs the 12-week plan was “the only realistic†abortion initiative that has a chance of reaching the ballot in 2024.
Abortion Action Missouri is campaigning on other issues, she noted: The group has lent a hand to a separate effort to raise the state’s minimum wage and guarantee sick days to workers — the group’s foundation on Oct. 27 wrote a $41,000 check to the minimum-wage campaign. The organization has also recruited on its website paid canvassers for the minimum-wage effort.
“I’ve seen them signal to the press and to the public that there is still a viable campaign at play, and yet we’re seeing them coalition-build for an entirely different campaign,†Corley said.
She said it was “disappointing†that other groups are putting up such resistance to the 12-week campaign in public and private “without offering a realistic alternative, and even more so actively moving on from their abortion initiative work.â€
Schwarz responded that “Jamie Corley may not be able to do two things at once, but Abortion Action Missouri certainly can.â€
Abortion Action Missouri supporting the minimum-wage campaign “is part of the essential work of building a broad coalition that an abortion access campaign will require.â€
Schwarz said internal disagreements had not contributed to the lack of a campaign among those in favor of a more expansive approach.