A trial in Missouri illustrates how hard it is to restore abortion rights, even when voters demand it
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fter Missouri residents voted to repeal their state’s near-total abortion ban and enshrine abortion rights into their state constitution, advocates quickly got to work. In a lawsuit filed the day after the 2024 election, abortion providers challenged not only the constitutionality of the state’s ban, but also a slew of other restrictions that, they said, made their jobs so arduous as to be impossible.
More than a year later, they’re still in court.
On Monday, Missouri abortion rights supporters and opponents ended a two-week-trial over the legality of dozens of Missouri restrictions. But Missouri is far from the only state where activists are waiting to realize the full promise of ballot measures that were meant to expand abortion rights in states that passed them. Legal battles over the measures are also raging in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Ohio. In some of these states, lawmakers have also introduced legislation that, experts say, would undercut the will of voters who passed the measures.
