Missouri Supreme Court defies voters, halts abortions in the state

One might have thought that last November, when Missourians voted to enshrine “reproductive freedom,” including abortion, in the state constitution, that would be the end of the conversation. In overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the US Supreme Court professed that the question of whether abortion should be legal was now up to states. And the people of Missouri made it very clear: They wanted abortion rights (at least until fetal viability).

Alas, the Missouri Supreme Court doesn’t seem to be inclined to listen.

Thanks to the passage of Amendment 3, Missouri’s criminal abortion ban is gone. But local Planned Parenthood affiliates are still fighting in court to overturn the web of restrictions, known as TRAP laws, that made providing abortions virtually impossible in the state even when Roe was the law of the land. These include a 72-hour waiting period, hallway width requirements for abortion clinics, and a rule that providers must have admitting privileges at a hospital 15 minutes away, to name just a few. In a pair of decisions in December and February, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang agreed to temporarily suspend enough of those old laws to allow abortions to resume in Missouri while the court case heads to a January 2026 trial.

But on Tuesday, the state supreme court overturned Zhang’s rulings, ordering her to reconsider the temporary block on the TRAP laws using a different legal standard. As a result, abortion providers have once again been forced to halt their work, rendering the constitutional right to abortion effectively moot, for now. For the second time since 2022, abortion clinics had to call pregnant people this week to let them know their scheduled abortions had been canceled, the Associated Press reported.

“This decision puts our state back under a de facto abortion ban and is devastating for Missourians and the providers they trust with their personal health care decisions,” Emily Wales and Margot Riphagen, leaders of the two Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri, said in a joint statement. “We will continue to fight for their freedom to the constitutionally protected health care they voted for.”

Planned Parenthood lawyers have already filed a brief asking Zhang to re-issue her preliminary injunction under the new standard and block the TRAP laws again. But even if Zhang agrees, and abortions do resume again in Missouri in a few weeks—or after a January 2026 trial—abortion rights in the state will remain far from settled.

That’s because, two weeks ago, Missouri lawmakers voted to put yet another constitutional amendment on the ballot—this one repealing the reproductive freedom amendment and banning virtually all abortions. Voters will see that question on their November 2026 ballots—or sooner, if Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe decides to call a special election.