The Missouri Supreme Court has ordered a judge in Kansas City to lift two rulings that halted enforcement of the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
After voters in November approved Amendment 3 to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, the Planned Parenthood affiliates serving the state sued. In December, Judge Jerri Zhang of the 16th Circuit ruled that the ban violated the constitution. In February, she ruled that licensing requirements for clinics that provide the procedure were discriminatory. That allowed abortions in the state to resume while the case made its way to a January 2026 trial.
In a joint statement Tuesday, Planned Parenthood Great Plains President and CEO Emily Wales and Planned Parenthood Great Rivers President and CEO Margot Riphagen said they will continue to push for abortion access for the state’s residents.
“This decision puts our state back under a de facto abortion ban and is devastating for Missourians and the providers they trust with their personal health care decisions,” they wrote. “At Planned Parenthood health centers across Missouri, our patients remain our north star, and we will continue to fight for their freedom to the constitutionally protected health care they voted for.”
Sam Lee, director of the anti-abortion rights group Campaign Life Missouri, said he was surprised at how quickly the Supreme Court released its decision.
He called the decision a win – albeit temporary – for those who want to see more regulations for abortion providers, such as a 72-hour waiting period for patients and a requirement that doctors have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
“The laws that have been passed over the decades were not only designed to prevent abortions, but also to protect the health of women who do get abortions,” Lee said. “So we're happy that those and other pro-life laws are now back in effect. We'll just see what happens going down the road. But we expect no abortions in Missouri at least for now.”
Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the Supreme Court to step in and reinstate the restrictions, arguing that women “would have no guarantee of health and safety because abortion facilities are functionally unregulated under state law in Missouri” and that there was no other way to protect them.
But attorneys for Planned Parenthood and others challenging abortion restrictions argued that the specific legal request Bailey was making generally applied only to duties that an official must do.
Bailey’s arguments for Supreme Court action, they said, amount to “nothing more than a disagreement with the Circuit Court’s decision to issue the Preliminary Injunctions and an objection to counsel’s advocacy for their clients.”
In a two-page ruling, the judges on Tuesday agreed that Zhang had not met the correct legal standard in issuing those temporary restraining orders. She could reissue the orders at a later date with different reasoning.
The order the Supreme Court issued Tuesday – called a “writ of mandamus” – is a way for the state to challenge a temporary decision without waiting for a full trial, explained St. Louis University law professor Marcia McCormick.
Such orders are fairly common, she said.
“I think [the state] wanted to be able to appeal the judge’s decision because they don’t want Amendment 3 to go into effect, or they don't want abortions to be performed.” she said.
McCormick added that it’s a delay for Planned Parenthood and Missouri residents who want to access abortion, “but I don’t see it as the kind of win [for the state] that would erase Amendment 3 from the books.”
Mallory Schwarz, executive director of the group Abortion Action Missouri, which helped pass Amendment 3, said the order was the latest attempt by state politicians to override the votes of Missouri residents.
In a statement, Bailey called the ruling “a win for common sense, for basic medical safety and for the sanctity of human life” and said the decision “vindicates warnings that Amendment 3 was a poorly drafted legal disaster.”
The court’s ruling comes barely two weeks after Senate Republicans used a rare procedural maneuver to shut down debate and force a vote on a measure that would repeal Amendment 3.
This story has been updated, including comments from supporters and opponents of abortion rights.
