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'A Profound Injustice': Missouri Judge Rules Abortion Rights Amendment Invalid
"Our fight to ensure that voters—not politicians—have the final say is far from over," said one organizer.
Sep 07, 2024
Campaigners who last month celebrated the success of their effort to place an abortion rights referendum on November ballots in Missouri faced uncertainty about the ballot initiative Friday night, after a judge ruled that organizers had made an error on their petitions that rendered the measure invalid.
Judge Christopher Limbaugh of Cole County Circuit Court sided with pro-forced pregnancy lawmakers and activists who had argued that Missourians for Constitutional Freedom had not sufficiently explained the ramifications of the Right to Reproductive Freedom initiative, or Amendment 3, which would overturn the state's near-total abortion ban.
The state constitution has a requirement that initiative petitions include "an enacting clause and the full text of the measure," and clarify the laws or sections of the constitution that would be repealed if the amendment were passed.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom included the full text of the measure on their petitions, which were signed by more than 380,000 residents—more than twice the number of signatures needed to place the question on ballots.
Opponents claimed, though, that organizers did not explain to signatories the meaning of "a person's fundamental right to reproductive freedom."
Limbaugh accused the group of a "blatant violation" of the constitution.
Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for the group, said it "remains unwavering in [its] mission to ensure Missourians have the right to vote on reproductive freedom on November 5."
"The court's decision to block Amendment 3 from appearing on the ballot is a profound injustice to the initiative petition process and undermines the rights of the... 380,000 Missourians who signed our petition," said Sweet. "Our fight to ensure that voters—not politicians—have the final say is far from over."
Limbaugh said he would wait until Tuesday, when the state is set to print ballots, to formally issue an injunction instructing the secretary of state to remove the question.
Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said it plans to appeal to a higher court, but if the court declines to act, the question would be struck from ballots.
As the case plays out in the coming days, said Missouri state Rep. Eric Woods (D-18), "it's a good time for a reminder that Missouri's current extreme abortion ban has ZERO exceptions for rape or incest. And Missouri Republicans are hell bent on keeping it that way."
The ruling came weeks after the Arkansas Supreme Court disqualified an abortion rights amendment from appearing on November ballots, saying organizers had failed to correctly submit paperwork verifying that paid canvassers had been properly trained.
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40 Groups Slam 'Deep Hypocrisy' of Saudi-Hosted Internet Governance Forum
"Is this a bad joke?" asked one campaigner.
Sep 06, 2024
As Saudi Arabia prepares to host a global internet summit in December, 40 human rights groups on Friday urged authorities in the kingdom to release everyone imprisoned for online expression, including an activist serving a 27-year prison sentence for criticizing her country's severe repression of women.
The 40 groups said in a joint statement that "Saudi Arabia must free all individuals arbitrarily detained solely for their online expression ahead of hosting the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Riyadh, which will take place from December 15-19."
"It is counter to the IGF's stated values for Saudi Arabia to host the IGF," the organizations asserted. "In 2024 it adopted a thematic focus on advancing human rights and inclusion in the digital age and Saudi Arabia continues to prosecute, lock up, forcibly disappear, and intimidate people into silence for expressing themselves on social media."
As Amnesty International—which accused Saudi Arabia of "deep hypocrisy"—noted:
Saudi authorities have waged a chilling crackdown against people who demonstrate even the slightest sign of dissenting or critical views online. Among those who have been convicted for their online expression is Salma al-Shehab. She was arrested in January 2021 and, after a grossly unfair trial, sentenced in January 2023 to a shocking 27-year prison term followed by a 27-year travel ban on trumped-up terrorism charges, simply because she tweeted in support of women's rights.
In another deeply disturbing case, in January 2024, Saudi Arabia's terrorism court sentenced Manahel al-Otaibi to 11 years in prison in connection with social media posts promoting women's rights and sharing images of herself online at a mall without wearing an abaya (a traditional loose-fitting long-sleeved robe).
Those targeted also include Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, a Red Crescent worker, who in April 2020, after a grossly unfair trial, was sentenced to 20 years, to be followed by a 20-year travel ban, for his satirical tweets, and Mohammad bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, a retired school teacher, who was sentenced to death in July 2023 for criticizing authorities on X (formerly Twitter) and his online activity on YouTube.
"These cases are emblematic of the Saudi authorities' chilling crackdown on freedom of expression, but they are not isolated examples," the 40 groups said in their statement. "Dozens of people in Saudi Arabia, including visitors to the country, have been detained solely for their online expression."
"Consequently," the signers added, "many civil society organizations and advocates, who would ordinarily attend the IGF, have chosen not to travel to Saudi Arabia, fearing that they cannot safely and freely participate in the conference."
Representatives of some of the 40 groups that signed the statement weighed in on Saudi Arabia hosting the IGF.
"Is this a bad joke?" asked Freedom Forward executive director Sunjeev Bery. "There's a phrase for this: 'rights-washing.' Rights-washing is when a human rights violator tries to hide their crimes by wrapping themselves in human rights language and causes."
"Saudi Arabia's dictatorship is one of the most repressive governments on the planet," Bery added. "Saudi internet users who dare to speak their minds are often arrested, tortured, and jailed for years."
Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said that "Saudi Arabia's authorities have 100 days before the IGF begins to demonstrate that they will ease their draconian crackdown on freedom of expression, and to show that they will use this event as an opportunity to carry out genuine reforms rather than as part of an image-washing campaign."
"In order to prove that their hosting of the conference about the internet's future is more than just a cynical PR exercise, the Saudi authorities must release all those arbitrarily detained solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression online before the IGF begins," she added.
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'Infuriating': Arkansas Supreme Court Disqualifies Abortion Amendment From Ballot
"This effort has generated a wave of fiercely engaged Arkansas women," said one organizer. "We are outraged. We will not back down. And we will remember this in November."
Aug 22, 2024
Abortion rights defenders in Arkansas said Thursday it was "a dark day" after the state's Supreme Court ruled a ballot measure that would enshrine stronger reproductive rights protections for people in the state was ineligible for November election ballots.
The court ruled 4-3 in favor of arguments presented by Republican officials including Secretary of State John Thurston and Attorney General Tim Griffin, who said organizers with Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG)—which submitted more than 101,000 signatures to secure the amendment for the ballot—had failed to correctly submit paperwork verifying that paid canvassers had been properly trained.
AFLG strategy director Rebecca Bobrow expressed agreement with Justice Karen Baker's dissent, which accused Thurston of making up statutory requirements "out of whole cloth" and of being "determined to keep this particular vote from the people" at all costs.
AFLG proposed an amendment that would have allowed people in Arkansas to obtain abortion care up to 18 weeks after fertilization, with additional exceptions for incest, rape, and fetal anomalies that would make it impossible for a fetus to survive after birth. Arkansas currently has one of the strictest abortion bans in the U.S., with abortion care allowed only in medical emergencies.
When Thurston rejected the group's petition last month, saying it had failed to submit an official statement regarding the training of its paid canvassers, AFLG sued to force the state to count all the signatures, which surpassed the 90,704 that were needed for the ballot initiative to be approved.
About 14,000 of the group's signatures were collected by paid canvassers, so the number of signatures gathered by unpaid volunteers—87,675—fell below the threshold.
As the Arkansas Times reported, the secretary of state's handbook on petitions states that an affidavit certifying that canvassers received training is a requirement for submitting petitions—but the three dissenting justices on Thursday wrote "that the actual statutory language appears to show that the paperwork oversight should not be fatal to the group's effort. And the handbook cannot overrule the law."
"Despite collecting signatures from more than 100,000 Arkansans—and despite the fact that the plain language of the statutes appeared to show that the review process for the petition should have continued—the court ruled that paperwork omission was fatal to the group's effort," wrote David Ramsey and Matt Campbell at the Arkansas Times. "For those following the case, this has always been the fear: Even if the law was on their side, the majority of the court opposes abortion. Ultimately the law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Among the grab-bag of flimsy arguments offered by Attorney General Tim Griffin, they found a couple they could stretch to suit the purpose of disqualifying the abortion petition."
Baker wrote in her dissent that "the majority has succeeded in its efforts to change the law in order to deprive the voters of the opportunity to vote on this issue, which is not the proper role of this court."
Compared to other ballot initiatives, she added, Thurston and the court's right-wing majority treated the abortion right amendment "differently for the sole purpose of preventing the people from voting on this issue."
Ramsey and Campbell wrote that AFLG could theoretically file a lawsuit in federal court challenging the ruling.
"But for procedural and timing reasons, that is extremely unlikely to help," they wrote. "In all likelihood, it's over: Citizens will not have the opportunity to vote to restore abortion rights in November."
Arkansas state Sen. Greg Leding (D-30) called the ruling "maddening and heartbreaking" and urged voters to consider abortion rights when they cast their ballots in November, regardless of whether the amendment is on ballots.
Bobrow told supporters that AFLG's fight "isn't over" despite the "infuriating" decision.
"We can't—and won't—rest until Arkansas women have access to safe, standard healthcare and the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies free from governmental interference," said Bobrow. "This effort has generated a wave of fiercely engaged Arkansas women. We are outraged. We will not back down. And we will remember this in November."
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