Appeals court rules state abortion ballot language uses ‘right to life’, ‘unborn child’ is ‘argumentative’

The Missouri Western District Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a ruling that found Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft used “argumentative” and “partisan” language in a description of the vote a proposed abortion amendment, court documents showed.

A Missouri judge determined in September, that Ashcroft’s use of phrases such as “right to life,” “unborn child,” and “dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions” were “problematic” and rewrote the secretary’s brief to include an approved language. The Court of Appeals agreed that Ashcroft tried to “mislead” voters with “inadequate and unfair” language, but said rewrite ballot summaries must specifically mention abortion to accurately describe the proposed amendment. seconds in court documents.

“The circuit court did not err in finding that the clerk’s language on this point is not fair and sufficient,” the court wrote in its opinion. “First of all, ‘right to life’ is a partisan political phrase in the same way that ‘right to choose’ is a partisan political phrase… The use of the term ‘right to life’ is simply not a term unbiased”.

The people of Missouri must have the truth in any summary of the vote. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood cannot lie about what this referendum does! https://t.co/NeooSgKAaL

— Jay Ashcroft (@JayAshcroftMO) October 31, 2023

Ashcroft plans to appeal the decision and intends to continue to defend its original summary language, seconds to a press release from his office. The secretary said the court’s ruling “continued to ignore the issue” of abortion.

“Once again, the Missouri courts refused to allow the truth to be known,” Ashcroft said in the news release. “The Western District essentially approved language that was completely rewritten by Judge Beetem. The language is not only misleading, it is categorically false.”

The proposed amendment would prevent Missouri from banning abortion before an unborn child reaches 24 weeks and would enshrine “a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution, according to the ruling. Once wording is official, supporters will need to collect 170,000 signatures in at least six of Missouri’s eight congressional districts to put the measure on the ballot, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Ashcroft’s office declined to comment further on the matter.

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