Church leaders encourage Catholics to vote “no” on Amendment 3
Missouri voters will decide in November whether to amend the state’s constitution to create a legal right to abortion.
The Missouri Secretary of State announced Aug. 13 that there are enough valid signatures needed for the proposed amendment, which will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot as Amendment 3.
The Missouri Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s bishops, said in an Aug. 13 statement that the measure is an “extreme constitutional amendment that legalizes abortion at any stage of pregnancy with no protections for the preborn child, even when the child is capable of feeling pain.”
The MCC said that the amendment would repeal longstanding health and safety standards for women. These includehealth and safety requirements for clinics where abortions are performed, requiring that abortions be performed only by a physician, informed consent requirements, laws prohibiting public funding of abortion and parental consent requirements before a minor’s abortion.
The proposed amendment would allow abortions until viability (typically around 22-24 weeks of pregnancy), with an exception for the “life and physical or mental health” of the mother. The ballot language specifically states that the government may not restrict an abortion “that in the good faith of a treating health care professional is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
The Missouri Catholic Conference has said that this means a health care provider could justify a late-term abortion due to a woman’s “physical, emotional, psychological, familial” concerns, based on precedent set in the 1973 Doe v. Bolton decision.
Missouri became the first state to enact a “trigger ban” to outlaw most abortions (with an exception for medical emergencies) when Roe v. Wade was overturned with the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The current law makes it a felony punishable by five to 15 years in prison to perform or induce an abortion. A woman undergoing an abortion cannot be prosecuted, however.
Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, who this week sent a letter to priests of the archdiocese with resources for talking about Amendment 3, said that the Church is speaking out on the issue “to look out for the common good of mothers and children. Destroying life — particularly innocent, vulnerable, human life — is not what humanity was created for.”
The archdiocesan Respect Life Apostolate continues to encourage Catholics to join in prayer to defeat the proposed amendment through the 140 Prayer Days for Life campaign, ongoing through Election Day on Nov. 5. The faithful are invited to sign up for a day to pray for that intention before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The apostolate also encourages Catholics to promote voter engagement and continue to support mothers in need and those who have been wounded by abortion.
“The work that the Respect Life Apostolate has done for the past 50-plus years will go on no matter what the outcome of the ballot initiative,” director Mary Varni said, adding that “the harm of abortion will be greatly multiplied if the measure is passed. We need to do everything we can to pray, educate others, walk with moms, heal women and to be active in public engagement. We receive our strength from God through prayer to do all these other actions.”
