Amendment 3, explained: this is not the 2024 Amendment 3
It has the same number, but it does the opposite. A yes vote on this year's Amendment 3 repeals the abortion-rights amendment Missouri voters approved in 2024.
Repeals the 2024 abortion-rights amendment and replaces it with the provisions below.
Keeps the 2024 amendment in place.
One vote decides two issues: the question covers both abortion and gender transition procedures for minors.
What a yes vote would do
- Repeal the 2024 amendment, which protects abortion through fetal viability.
- Allow abortion for rape and incest before twelve weeks, and for medical emergencies and fetal anomalies.
- Allow the Legislature to pass laws regulating abortion.
- Require parental consent for minors' abortions.
- Prohibit gender transition procedures for minors.
The ballot wording
The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, rewrote the ballot language in December 2025 after a legal challenge. The summary on this page follows that wording. Read the full text at the polls.
Both arguments, equal space
We don't tell you how to vote. Here is the best honest case each side makes.
The case for yes
Supporters, led by Her Health, Her Future and backed by Gov. Mike Kehoe, argue the 2024 amendment went far beyond what many voters understood, stripping the state of the power to set basic safety rules and require parental consent.
They say this keeps access in the hardest cases, lets elected lawmakers regulate clinics, and protects children from medical transition procedures they consider experimental.
The case for no
Opponents, organized as Stop the Ban Missouri with groups including the ACLU of Missouri and Planned Parenthood affiliates, argue Missourians settled this in 2024 and are being asked again because politicians disliked the answer.
They say the rape and incest window and the emergency exception are narrow, that lawmakers gain open-ended power to restrict further, and that bundling the two issues is meant to confuse voters.
See the rest of Missouri's statewide ballot
The full 2026 Missouri Voter Guide covers the State Auditor race, the Supreme Court retention question, and all five ballot measures, each with the strongest case for both sides. Instant PDF download.
Get the Missouri guide · $4.99Before you vote: see your sample ballot and the official ballot language at sos.mo.gov/elections. This page summarizes; it is not the ballot text.
Sources: Missouri Secretary of State; KCUR, the Missouri Independent and other reporting on Amendment 3.