Speaking Personally -- Let’s keep talking about Amendment 3

There are two letters on this page urging voters to vote no on Amendment 3. On the ballot via initiative petition, this amendment to Missouri’s Constitution would prevent lawmakers from outlawing abortion. 

Since these letters arrived in the news office, two orders from Cole County Courts have changed the landscape of this issue. These court orders may or may not make it a moot point. 

 

But I doubt it, so the letters from our readers are printed here. And I’d like to provide a little information on the developments. 

 

On September 5, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri received a favorable judgment in their suit against the Secretary of State’s office. The Court agreed with the ACLU that the fair ballot language Ashcroft published was insufficient. 

 

If Amendment 3 makes it onto the ballot, the language has been ordered to read, “a ‘yes’ vote establishes a constitutional right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid; removes Missouri’s ban on abortion; allows regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient; requires the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and allows abortion to be restricted or banned after Fetal Viability except to protect the life or health of the woman.”

 

I say “if” Amendment 3 makes it onto the ballot because a September 6 order from a Cole County judge declared the initiative petition to be insufficient. If unchallenged, the amendment would, in fact, be off the ballot.

 

However, proponents of the initiative petition have until September 10 to appeal. They will certainly appeal, and presumably had a very busy weekend preparing to file. 

 

This second suit was filed by Hannah Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, and other conservative female political leaders. In response to Friday’s order, they released this statement, “Missourians have a constitutional right to know what laws their votes would overturn before deciding to sign initiative petitions.  Amendment 3 isn't just about abortion. It is about a host of topics including whether gender transition surgeries for minors without parental consent should be enshrined into our constitution. There is no way to know if the proponents of this radical amendment would have gathered enough signatures to place this on the ballot if the truth about the staggering scope of laws Amendment 3 invalidates had been disclosed.”

 

To me, the biggest problem with initiative petition issues is that they aren’t really the grassroots movements we’re supposed to assume they are. Well-funded special interests can and do pour rivers of money into campaigning for initiative petition issues just to get them on the ballot, circumventing the lawmakers in the legislature.

 

As such, of course, the pro-Amendment 3 folks are prepared, both in strategy and funding, to litigate and appeal as much as necessary. Fair enough.

 

I explain all this to say – we must keep talking about this issue. It’s not over. 

 

I’m going to keep talking about it, for one. Because killing humans, no matter how small, is always wrong. 

 

It's not “reproductive health care” to kill a fetal human. 

 

And to address a criticism directed at my last Amendment 3 opinion – yes, I am a Christian, but you don’t have to be a Christian to think that dismembering a defenseless fetal human is wrong. Secularists can be pro-life, too.

 

Fetal embryology is a science, and it is the reason we know when a heart starts beating and what the age of viability is. If an organism with human DNA has a beating heart, it is a living human being. Stopping that heart ends that life. 

 

The inherent value of human life is greater than the inherent value of free choice. 

 

It’s not disrespectful to women to tell them it’s wrong to kill a fetal human, ever, under any circumstances. 

 

I respect, sympathize, and care so deeply about any woman confronted with an unexpected pregnancy. After my six pregnancies, I know exactly how terrifying they are, how overwhelming. 

 

To my fellow terrified and overwhelmed mothers, I say – there are so many choices available to you. You have so many resources, so many options. You are not alone, and there is help available. I will personally help you.

 

But there is one choice you cannot have and should never have. 

 

I draw the line at stopping a beating heart. I draw the line at ending the life of human being who can hear, kick, and cry. Fetal humans can do all these things before the age of viability. 

 

We cannot look away from the inhumanity and carnage of abortion because we value a woman’s right to choose. 

 

Vote NO on Amendment 3.