karlie kloss for the washington post: “Abortion should be on Missouri’s ballot this fall”
Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much these days, but since Roe v. Wade was overturned, many of us have found common ground: protecting reproductive freedom. The truth is, an overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a woman’s right to choose.
Abortion has been on the ballot in some form in seven states since the Supreme Court struck down Roe. In all of them — from blue Vermont and California to deep-red Montana and Ohio — voters have said loud and clear: Bans off women’s bodies. Many other states will hopefully have their say on abortion rights in November. One is Missouri, my home state
Growing up in St. Louis with three sisters and a dad who is a doctor, I didn’t see reproductive health as a political issue. It was real life. And policymakers were making women’s lives harder by limiting access to care. Even under Roe, it became virtually impossible to get an abortion in Missouri because of strategically placed hurdles to accessing care and requirements so narrow that eventually only one abortion clinic remained open in the entire state. Then the Trump administration appointed justices to the Supreme Court who ultimately overturned Roe. Minutes later, Missouri became the first state to ban abortion without exceptions for rape or incest — only for a few medical emergencies such as “imminent death.”
If their first tactic for chipping away at our rights was at clinics, their next target is the ballot box. Missouri now has the chance to protect it. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom is working to get an abortion amendment to the state constitution on the November ballot. But anti-choice Republicans are trying to make it harder for that to happen by weakening direct democracy.
First, Missouri’s secretary of state tried to add overtly partisan and misleading language to the ballot initiative to restore abortion rights. Thankfully, the Missouri Supreme Court stopped him. Now state Senate Republicans are overriding 200 years of precedent by significantly raising the threshold for constitutional amendments to pass. Under their new scheme, a simple majority of voters statewide would no longer be enough to pass an amendment. Instead, an amendment would need to win a majority in five of the state’s eight congressional districts (five of which are deeply conservative).
This is all part of a nationwide playbook to rip away our freedoms. In Kansas, antiabortion politicians tried to confuse voters with convoluted language on an abortion referendum. In Ohio, they tried to make it harder for a majority of voters to change the state’s constitution to protect abortion rights. Their efforts failed spectacularly, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers in Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Montana from trying similar tactics. Activists in those states are trying to give voters a voice on abortion this November, and politicians are trying to silence them.
For most people, reproductive health care isn’t about politics — it’s deeply personal. It’s fundamentally about freedom, dignity and bodily autonomy. That’s why I’ve been engaged on this issue since I was a teenager. In 2012, I trained as a clinic escort to protect patients arriving for appointments at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis. Years later, I became involved with the incredible team at CHOICES in Carbondale, Ill. — across the state line from Missouri — and dozens of other clinics. When Roe fell, these clinics were overwhelmed. To help fill the gap, I launched an organization called Gateway Coalition to direct funding to various Midwest groups to provide accessible abortion care. And I continue to learn from organizations such as the Abortion Bridge Collaborative Fund advisory council and Abortion Care Network.
Karlie Kloss gathers signatures for the Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment with a volunteer from Abortion Action Missouri in St. Louis in March.
Through clinic visits and meetings with providers, center operators, and movement leaders across the country, I’ve learned how desperately patients need abortion care and what clinics go through to provide it. Clinics are being closed down, doctors are being blocked from providing care, and women are being forced to carry pregnancies against their will.
The Missouri I know supports freedom. Missourians know that decisions around pregnancy — including abortion, birth control, IVF and miscarriage care — are personal and private, and should be left up to patients and their families. As a mother, sister, daughter, friend and someone who cares deeply about the dignity of others, I’m working toward a future where everyone has the freedom to access abortion affordably and on a timeline that meets their needs. The Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment is an important step toward that future. We have to pass it, and then we have to build on it. I’m committed to staying in this fight until abortion is safely and affordably available for every patient nationwide.
If you agree that patients, not politicians, should make their own health-care decisions — or simply that a small minority should not prevent a majority from winning at the ballot box — make your voice heard this election cycle.
If you’re in Missouri, that means signing the petition for the Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment by May 5, volunteering to gather signatures from others and then voting for the ballot initiative in the general election. Across the country, that means showing up at the polls when politicians try to twist the rules to serve their anti-choice agenda. And, this November, it means voting for candidates for president and Congress who will codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law — and rejecting those promising to further restrict our reproductive rights.
Our fundamental freedoms are on the line — the right to abortion, and now, the right to have our voices heard at the ballot box.
