Missouri
Abortion-rights coalition launches campaign to put amendment on Missouri ballot • Missouri Independent
After months of court battles and internal squabbles, a coalition of Missouri abortion-rights organizations plan to officially launch an effort Thursday to put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot to legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability.
Despite reports of discord within the coalition, the campaign has the support of Abortion Action Missouri, the ACLU of Missouri and Planned Parenthood affiliates in Kansas City and St. Louis.
Missouri has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, banning all abortions except in the case of medical emergencies. A political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom announced Thursday it would begin to gather signatures to put an initiative petition on the statewide ballot rolling back that ban.
Missouri abortion-rights amendments face ‘torturous’ process to make it to 2024 ballot
The organization has settled on a version of its 11 initiative petitions that would allow the legislature to “regulate the provision of abortion after fetal viability provided that under no circumstance shall the government deny, interfere with, delay or otherwise restrict an abortion that in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
The proposed constitutional amendment won out over other versions, including one that would have sought to make abortion legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and another that would have removed any gestational limits on abortion completely.
“Missouri’s cruel and restrictive ban on abortion is tying the hands of doctors and preventing necessary care,” Dr. Iman Alsaden, advisor to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom and chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement. “Missourians are taking a critical step to make their own medical decisions and kick politicians out of the exam room.”
The coalition has until May 5 to gather more than 171,000 valid signatures from across the state. If they succeed in this expensive endeavor, the amendment will appear on the statewide ballot.
A competing Republican-led ballot initiative, which started collecting signatures in November, is seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the constitution up to 12 weeks. It would also allow exceptions for rape and incest.
Dr. Selina Sandoval, who works as a full-time abortion provider in Kansas, said that practically every day she sees patients traveling from Missouri to Kansas for care. She said after the “devastating” news that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, she’s hopeful change may be on the horizon.
“We’re very optimistic. We know that the majority of Americans and the majority of Missourians feel that abortion should be legal and accessible,” said Sandoval, who is also associate medical director at Planned Parenthood Great Plains. “They are risking financial security, they’re having to travel across state lines. And it’s just a very unnecessary, cruel, very unjust ban that we’re facing.”
Viability language
In the nearly 19 months since the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision put abortion laws in state’s hands, voters in seven states have approved ballot measures to preserve or expand abortion access.
Abortion-rights advocates have said they are confident an attempt to expand access would also pass in Missouri. But they were less sure of just how far to go in a state that has veered from a swing state to staunchly Republican over the last two decades.
Proponents settled on viability language, defined in the initiative petition as the point in pregnancy when “there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
Viability language is also drafted into proposed ballot measures this year in Arizona, Florida, Nebraska and Nevada. Last fall, Ohioans voted to legalize abortion up to the point of viability.
Viability can be difficult to define, though it’s usually determined to be between 20 and 25 weeks gestation. Despite the language being somewhat common in state laws, it’s also controversial. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has dissuaded the use of viability limits in legislation, as there is no single clinical definition of viability.
“Legislative bans on abortion care often overlook unique patient needs, medical evidence, individual facts in a given case, and the inherent uncertainty of outcomes in favor of defining viability solely by gestational ages,” the college wrote in a statement online. “Therefore, ACOG strongly opposes policy makers defining viability or using viability as a basis to limit access to evidence-based care.”
Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, said the coalition believes the viability language meets most Missourians where they are.
“Many members of our coalition are out talking about abortion with Missourians every day, and we know that Missourians often have complex or nuanced positions on abortion, but there is one thing that they are aligned in, and it’s that they want to end the abortion ban,” Schwarz said. “That they do not support the abortion ban we are living under today, and we are confident this is our best path forward.”
Race to gather signatures
Abortion-rights groups around the state have blamed Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for the delay in getting a petition off the ground.
In November, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, backed by the Missouri ACLU, won a legal battle over the ballot summary language, giving the coalition the green light to move ahead with signature gathering.
“Any campaign that would move forward is left to contend with a myriad of challenges, including a severely constricted timeline,” Schwarz said following a November court ruling. “At the same time there is incredible opportunity and there’s hope here because we continue to see abortion rights and access remain a top priority for voters across the country.”
Now Schwarz said she is confident they can raise the money to get the signatures they need despite the short timeline, though she didn’t provide clarity on how much money has been raised, or how soon signature gathering will begin.
In Ohio, more than $70 million was spent on both sides in the fight over enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, the Associated Press reported. This included several million in donations toward the pro-abortion movement from national funders.
The question remains for both of Missouri’s coalitions: Is there enough time and financial support to successfully gather the necessary signatures by May?
As of their January quarterly fundraising report filed to the Missouri Ethics Commission on Tuesday, the group had no cash on hand. They raised just shy of $13,500 in 2023, mostly in in-kind donations from the ACLU of Missouri for legal representation.
In mid-November, Jamie Corley, a longtime GOP Congressional staffer, launched a campaign effort for an initiative petition that would add rape and incest exceptions to Missouri’s abortion ban and legalize the procedure up to 12 weeks.
Like Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, Corley’s initiative also seeks to protect doctors and pregnant patients from prosecution. Currently, any health care providers who violate the law can have their medical licenses suspended or revoked and face a class B felony, and five to 15 years in prison.
As of Tuesday, Corley had raised more than $61,000, and had spent little of it, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission. The majority of the donations were given by Corley herself.
Experts have called Missouri’s signature gathering process costly and “tortuous.”
Jack Cardetti, who helped run a number of successful initiative petition campaigns in Missouri, previously told The Independent that high dollar donations can be an indicator of success as the deadline to collect signatures from six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts draws near.
Anti abortion group mobilizes against ballot efforts
Last week, a political action committee called Missouri Stands with Women was launched to “push back against the Big Abortion Industry.”
The committee, whose president is veteran anti-abortion activist Sam Lee, was formed to fight any abortion initiative petitions that make it to the ballot.
“Out-of-state extremists pushing Big Abortion’s agenda are intent on using the initiative petition process to reverse all the pro-life work our state has undertaken to protect the dignity of life, safety of women and parental rights,” Stephanie Bell, a spokeswoman for Missouri Stands with Women and a lawyer based out of Jefferson City, said in a news release Tuesday.
As of Thursday morning, the group had received one donation of just over $5,000, from the Missouri Catholic Conference.
In the December issue of The Messenger, a publication by the Missouri Catholic Conference, a letter from Missouri bishops encouraged Missourians to vote against any abortion initiatives that make it to the ballot.
“Even with legal protections for the unborn, as we have in our state today, more can still be done to build a culture of life,” the bishops wrote.
Missouri has long been a national example of what a state might look like post-Roe.
Since 2018, Missouri was already down to just one abortion clinic. Prior to the trigger law, abortion was banned after eight weeks in Missouri.
Missouri anti-abortion lawmakers for years have been making abortion access more difficult.
Before abortion became illegal, Missouri law required doctors to have admitting privileges at close hospitals before performing abortions. Patients sought abortions first had to receive state-mandated counseling from the doctor which discouraged abortion. If the woman still wanted to proceed, she then had to wait 72 hours to get the procedure, which had to be done by the same doctor who issued the counseling.
As a result, the number of abortions performed in Missouri dropped dramatically. In 2021, only 150 abortions were performed in Missouri, according to state health department data.
But many thousands of Missouri women are still getting abortions. In 2020, more than 3,200 Missourians received abortions in Kansas, according to the state health department. The same year, more than 6,500 Missourians received abortions in Illinois.
Thursday’s news release from the coalition also highlighted Missouri’s alarming rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, in part due to pregnancy complications.
“OBGYNs and maternity practices are packing up and moving away to avoid political harassment and criminalization,” the release read. “We don’t have time to wait. Together, we are going to end Missouri’s cruel abortion ban.”
Increased fertilizer prices have farmers concerned
Let’s look at how economic and farming experts see this playing out in the coming months, and what that means for all of us.
While industries across the U.S. are experiencing shortages as a result of the war in Iran, it appears Missouri farmers could come out without much impact — this year, at least.
The conflict has seen closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway for one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. All the shipping disruption has increased the price of fuel, vital to the production of fertilizer, and has limited the export of nitrogen-based fertilizers manufactured in the Persian Gulf.
Ultimately, experts say, it could disrupt the supply chain for months to come and further drive up grocery prices. The World Bank has even warned that the conflict could threaten food security worldwide.
Most Missouri row crop producers — whose fields yield corn, soybeans, cotton, rice and peanuts — had secured the majority of the fertilizer they needed for the year before the conflict began, said Ben Brown, University of Missouri Extension’s state crop row economist.
“There’s probably about 15% of our fertilizer needs still left from the row crop space that would have been used in-season,” Brown said. “The majority of it was already here and already paid for. For this growing season, there’s not as much of a concern about fertilizer as it would be next year.”
Dr. Joana Colussi, research assistant professor in Purdue University’s Department of Agricultural Economics, points to a late March survey of nearly 1,000 corn growers conducted by the National Corn Growers Association. Eight out of 10 corn growers said their 2026 corn acreage plans have not been impacted by the Middle East conflict, which has seen fertilizer prices spike as high as 45%.
In April, an American Farm Bureau Federation Fertilizer Availability Survey of more than 5,700 farmers and ranchers across the country plainly stated that “rising input costs tied to the conflict in the Middle East are adding strain to an already challenging farm economy.”
But the survey also found pronounced variance in fertilizer pre-booking rates by region. Fully 67% of Midwestern commodity farmers typically relying on soybean and corn — the nation’s two largest crops — reported having made fertilizer purchases ahead of the planting season that is now at its peak.
It’s a number more than twice as high as any other region.
“Given these crop rotations, pre-booking is more common in the Midwest, where fertilizer needs are typically larger and purchasing decisions are often made well ahead of planting,” the American Farm Bureau Federation stated. “As a result, a larger share of Midwestern farmers reported being able to secure the inputs they need before recent price increases.”
Looking ahead to this fall
None of this means the Midwestern farm economy is barreling onward and upward, impervious to the effects of the Iranian conflict.
Timing is everything in agriculture. The conflict in Iran broke out when farmers were on the precipice of their spring plant of corn and soybeans, typically used for livestock feed, food and biofuels. Fertilizers are applied just before or at planting time.
Most Midwestern farmers may have pre-purchased their fertilizers for this crop season — but farmers must plant with one eye fixed firmly on the future, said Brady Holst, vice chairman of the Illinois Soybean Association.
“Around 20% (of Midwest farmers) that put nitrogen (fertilizer) on (their farmland) in the spring or in (planting) season would be hit hard by higher prices because they are buying now or in the next month or two,” said Holst, who farms soybeans, corn and wheat on 3,600 acres in West Central Illinois.
“It has all farmers worried because usually they will buy fertilizer for this coming fall ahead of time. And fertilizer prices move slowly around the world, so it takes a long time for fertilizer prices to move down. So even if the (Iranian) conflict ended today, the price for fall fertilizer would still be elevated.”
Veronica Nigh, senior economist at The Fertilizer Institute, points out that the United States produces about 60% of its own total needs for the phosphate fertilizer used extensively in corn and soybean production.
The U.S. still imports a significant portion from Saudi Arabia, Nigh said during an April 23 seminar of the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Agricultural Market Information System.
“We have significant exposure from the Middle East,” she said. “From a timing perspective, however, those phosphate imports tend to come in earlier in the year, so much of that product was already in place prior to the Strait (of Hormuz) closure.”
But Nigh said one of the Fertilizer Institute’s members had reminded her that “we’re an industry that builds product for four months and then applies it for two.”
“So we’re now certainly getting into the time of the year where we’re looking and thinking and worrying about building those supplies for the fall application,” she said.
‘The whole world revolves around diesel fuel’
The war in Iran, in addition to issues with U.S. oil refineries, has led to record prices.
“Diesel fuel here in the U.S. is actually more expensive than it was in the run-up to the COVID-19 outbreak and the conflict that we saw in Russia and Ukraine. That’s how high diesel prices have gotten here lately,” Brown said. “It’s a combination of the Middle East plus some refinery issues in the U.S.”
Part of this is due to the fact that most of the oil produced in the U.S. is used for gasoline production, while heavy crude oil, which is used to produce diesel for tractors and trucks, is imported. This could lead to higher prices at the grocery store, Brown said.
“Any time we see higher oil prices, it increases the cost from farm gate to retail,” Brown said. “So much of the food dollar now comes from that part of the equation, that the real impact to producers is going to be the higher diesel fuel cost on all of this (and) the lack of production of agriculture commodities.”
Dairy farmer Jim Good, farm manager of Michigan State University’s Dairy Cattle Teaching & Research Center, pointed to a surge in diesel prices that, Good says, is putting the hurt on him.
Everything burns diesel fuel on a dairy farm — everything from tractors to semi-trucks, Good said.
“Everything is freighted in and freighted out (by semi trucks) on the dairy farm,” he said. “We’ve got feed coming in. We’ve got milk going out. The whole world revolves around diesel fuel, so when it goes from $3 a gallon to $6 a gallon, it gets to be pretty pricey.
“Some of our products — if you’re not raising your own grain products, those all have to be trucked in. We don’t have processing on site, so we’ve got to haul that milk out.”
The Iran war’s disruption of global energy production has led to steeper petrol, diesel and jet fuel prices. Diesel, which was averaging more than $5.70 a gallon in Michigan and Indiana as of May 1, according to AAA, remained above $4.40 on average following Memorial Day weekend. If the higher energy prices continue, that will also put pressure on Missouri producers.
“We are starting to see higher energy prices feed into the inflationary pressures,” Brown said. “Part of the expectation would be that if this continues, we’d see higher interest expenses for producers later in the year.”
During an April 13 visit to Michigan State University’s Dairy Cattle Teaching and Research Center, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins brought some help for Michigan’s specialty crop sectors — an increase from $165 million to $275 million in Specialty Crop grants.
Taking the long view
If the war with Iran continues, there will likely be impacts on Missouri producers next season, Brown said. Higher fertilizer prices would result in producers having to make changes to their crops.
“We’ll probably see a bit of higher fertilizer prices if (the war is) still around,” Brown said, which will likely result in farmers shifting “to the less fertilizer-dependent crops; reducing fertilizer, which potentially has an impact on yield — those would be things we expect for next year.”
The Illinois Soybean Association’s Holst finds hope in a push within Congress to let gas stations sell E-15 — gasoline blended with 15% ethanol — nationwide and year-round to ease fuel costs without forcing stations to overhaul their equipment. The U.S. House passed the legislation May 13 but it faces an uncertain future in the Senate.
The Environmental Protection Agency has issued temporary emergency fuel waivers to allow nationwide sales of E-15 in past years, but Holst said he and other farmers want it to be permanent.
“They were worried about that becoming a smog problem, but there’s been lots of queries and studies with more modern vehicles and how the gasoline system is now,” he said. “There’s not really a concern for that, so it’s just kind of the slow grinding cogs of the government. Technology’s advanced a lot faster than we can advance the legislation that’s out there.”
If fertilizer prices don’t come down for farmers by the middle of summer or this fall, Holst said, there will be noticeable “acreage shifts” — a move away from planting corn to planting soybeans, which require less nitrogen fertilizer, meaning lower production costs.
That would be felt in Illinois, the nation’s largest soybean producing state and second-largest corn producing state.
In a recent survey of 4,000 farmers across 26 states, Chicago-based Farmer’s Keeper LLC found considerable sentiment for such a shift.
“Since March 1, 21% of farmers said they plan to decrease their corn acres,” Farmer’s Keeper CEO Nick Tsiolis said in a recent episode of Ag Marketing IQ in Depth.
The Farmer’s Keeper survey tracks with findings from a recent Farm Futures Q1 survey, which showed 43% of farmers planning to grow less corn. But it also clashes with a March 31 USDA Prospective Plantings report that predicted only a 3.4% decrease from last year’s corn plantings.
Tsiolis told Ag Marketing IQ in Depth that farmers must make future cropping decisions with great care.
“Soybeans could fall out of bed really quickly if oil prices drop and diesel costs come down,” he said.
“Farming is a long-term game,” Tsiolis said. “Profitability comes from balancing agronomic and budgeting decisions, not making drastic swings year to year.”
Looking ahead, Purdue’s Colussi and Langemeier say the U.S. and Brazil — the world’s largest soybean producer and exporter — must better protect themselves in the future from “external shocks” like the conflict in Iran. They called on the two nations to more aggressively expand their fertilizer production.
“This is a long-term challenge, but it is becoming increasingly necessary for both countries to remain competitive in the global grain market,” they wrote. “Greater supply security would reduce vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions and provide more stability in input costs for producers.”
News-Leader reporter Susan Szuch contributed to this story.
The Missouri State University Foundation announced May 27 more new private gifts for the Clifton M. Smart III University Advancement Center, including a custom “Mo State” Steinway player piano.
During Wednesday’s event, the foundation also announced that it is 100 days away from opening its doors.
While Missouri State University Foundation president and CEO Brent Dunn was supposed to speak at the event, a family emergency meant he was unavailable, and MSU President Richard “Biff” Williams took his place.
“This center will be far more than a building,” Williams said. “It will be a welcome front door for our alumni, for our donors and for our friends. It will be a place where relationships are strengthened, Missouri pride is celebrated and the future of our university continues to grow not only through philanthropy but also through engagement.”
The new gifts include:
- The Garnett Family Bears Den, previously referred to as Living Room, from Mark Garnett (1978), Diann Garnett (1996), Kimberly Garnett Foht (1998) and Stephanie Garnett Smith (2004 and 2006);
- A Mo State Custom Steinway Spirio Piano from Gordon Kinne (1975) and Laura Kinne (1979);
- The Bart Bailey and Amelia Bailey Counts Executive Breakout Room from Bart Bailey and Amelia Bailey Counts (1994);
- An advancement office from Clarence E. McElroy (1963);
- Mary Asher Tearney BearMobile from Mary Asher Tearney (1954);
- And the Stan and Ethel Curbow BearMobile from Stan Curbow (1959) and Ethel Curbow (1960).
Between the proceeds from the 2024 sale of the Kenneth E. Meyer Alumni Center and additional foundation contributions, $20 million of the $26 million project is the result of private support.
The alumni center was announced in April 2024 and is named after former President Clif Smart as the result of a gift from an anonymous donor that was more than $1 million.
At the time, Dunn said the donor wanted to “recognize the contributions Clif has made over his tenure at the university.”
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