Missouri supreme court keeps ballot measure to protect abortion rights

Missouri residents will vote in November on a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution, after the state supreme court ruled Tuesday the measure could be put to voters.

The decision marked the culmination of a heated weeks-long battle over the ballot measure, which proposes to protect people’s “fundamental right to reproductive freedom”, including the right to birth control and to an abortion up until fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion opponents had challenged the measure as invalid, arguing that it violated Missouri law because it did not list the existing laws that it would repeal.

The measure, they wrote in court documents, “is a proposal to repeal Missouri’s ban on abortion that does not disclose to voters that it will repeal Missouri’s ban on abortion. It illegally induces Missouri voters to do more than they wish to.”

Related: Judge rules Missouri ballot measure to protect abortion rights is invalid

Missouri currently bans abortion except in medical emergencies.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group behind the measure, collected more than 380,000 signatures in support of the proposed amendment. The group argued that abortion opponents are using a “novel” legal theory to kick the measure off the ballot and that a new amendment would not repeal Missouri’s old abortion laws but create a new one.

“No recorded decision has ever accepted such a theory and used it to decertify a proposed constitutional amendment that was supported by the requisite number of voters’ signatures,” the group’s lawyers wrote in court records, adding: “Hundreds of thousands have exercised their power as citizens, and want their fellow Missourians to vote on whether to change the Constitution with regard to abortion rights.”

Last week, a lower-court judge ruled to remove the measure but asked for a final ruling from the state supreme court. Still, on Monday, Missouri’s secretary of state, Jay Ashcroft, decertified the measure.

In front of the supreme court on Tuesday, lawyer Charles Hatfield, who represented Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, told the judges that the decertification, although largely symbolic, represented “open contempt for your authority”.

“It’s open contempt for the rule of law,” Hatfield continuing, punctuating his point by slamming his finger down on his podium. “It’s open contempt for the proper administration of justice.”

Hours after the hearing, before an evening deadline to finalize the ballot, the Missouri supreme court ruled to let voters see the measure. The one-page order did not immediately include a majority opinion to explain the court’s reasoning.

“Opinions to follow,” read the order, which was signed by Chief Justice Mary Russell.

In the years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade , voters in multiple states – including Michigan, Ohio and Kansas – have moved to protect abortion rights. Come November, nearly a dozen states are set to vote on abortion-related ballot measures, including Nevada and Arizona, two key battleground states in the presidential election.

Related: Tracking abortion laws across the United States

But as abortion rights supporters have latched onto ballot measures as a way to protect abortion rights, anti-abortion activists have launched new efforts to take them down.

Nebraska , which bans abortion past 12 weeks of pregnancy, is set to let its residents vote on two competing measures: one that would add the 12-week ban into the state constitution, and another that would restore the right to an abortion up until fetal viability. However, on Monday, the state supreme court heard arguments in lawsuits that aim to stop one or both of the measures from reaching voters, in part based on the argument that they violate state law by dealing with too many subjects.

The court is expected to rule by Friday, the deadline for the Nebraska ballot to be certified.

In South Dakota, a trial is set to begin on 23 September over a ballot measure that also seeks to protect abortion rights up until viability. That trial, which will begin after early voting is already underway, will deal with whether the signatures collected in support of the measure are valid.

James Leach, a lawyer for Dakotans for Health, the organization behind the ballot measure, warned that the trial could be perceived by voters as a form of election interference, according to the South Dakota Searchlight .

“They’re asking for something I hope makes a little shudder run through you, which is to declare that the ballot measure is invalid, and that no one’s vote should count,” he said.