It’s likely that you’ve seen a lot of news around abortion ballot initiatives that have been put in front of voters, allowing them to vote on abortion access protections. Abortion rights have been supported resoundingly in states like Michigan, Kansas and most recently Ohio. They are being pursued in other state like Missouri, Arizona and my home state: Missouri. These aren’t all straightforward however, and I've wrestled with what to say and to what extent.

At the end of the day, I would want to show Grace Pearl I fought for her as hard as I could. I want to be able to show my living daughter the same.

I realized that I wasn’t going to go wrong standing up for myself and the many other later abortion seekers who are being left out of all but one versions of these initiatives in favor of a potential “compromise” in the form of a viability ban with politicians who have shown us again and again that they will abuse their power any chance they get to control pregnant people.

And Katie Cox out of Texas offers a heartbreaking look into how abortion ban exceptions don’t work, and how cruel and devastating the outcomes are.

Any abortion initiative must fully and completely remove politicians and their appointees from Missourians’ healthcare.

I encourage anyone volunteering to gather signatures for these efforts to ensure they understand which version they are working for. They are not all created equally.

You can read more at this link in the Missouri Independent, or below.

Any abortion initiative on Missouri ballot must end political interference in medical care

The overturning of Roe vs Wade last year has created massive fallout, with abortion-rights advocates scrambling to react.

Voters in states like Kansas, Michigan and most recently Ohio have resoundingly supported ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights in their constitutions. Similar initiatives are being pursued in Florida, Arizona and my home state of Missouri. However they all have a troubling commonality: The attempt to reinstate Roe, a framework deemed insufficient by the very reproductive justice leaders now pushing these ballot initiatives.

I understand the results of political “compromise” on abortion all too well.

In 2016, I was in the 2nd trimester of a pregnancy I had deeply hoped for after expensive, physically demanding fertility treatments. But then we learned the new, devastating information that our baby had a fatal fetal condition. Given all of the information we had, and with counsel from an excellent medical team, we made the heartbreaking decision to terminate the pregnancy.

But then we learned we were fast approaching Missouri’s abortion ban, which at the time was 22 weeks. I also had to sign judgmental and biased non-medical consents and wait 72 hours to receive necessary medical care.

The weight of Missouri’s callous disregard for the complications of pregnancy, or my health and safety, felt heavy. I felt judged, stigmatized and disregarded. And this was all under the “protections” of Roe.

After my experience, I felt called to step into abortion-rights advocacy. I have shared my story at all levels of government and I joined local advocacy efforts in an effort to reduce stigma and create better policy.

Recently The Moth reshared a storytelling event where I told my whole story. To date, it has been viewed 1.5 million times. So I am confident my story has changed the hearts and minds of a lot of people and I’m grateful that I’ve been able to find some light from what was the darkest experience of my life.

However, my disappointment lies in how progressive advocates, Democrats and citizens often exploit stories like mine for fundraising and awareness but dismiss us when it comes to shaping crucial policies — especially with abortion being more popular than ever.

This hypocrisy reveals a disheartening betrayal of trust and a glaring disconnect between advocacy and genuine empowerment.

Missouri’s reproductive-rights advocates are currently championing ballot language that permits state interference post-arbitrary “viability” limits, which are medically inaccurate, dismiss individual circumstances like my own, and let politicians continue to tamper with our healthcare decisions.

Amid these initiatives, only one version stands as a “clean” solution, genuinely removing state entities from our reproductive rights. Advocates must focus on advancing this version exclusively, or, alternatively, clearly articulate a realistic plan to address the shortcomings of other versions, whether it be TRAP laws that would remain intact or people like me that would be left behind entirely.

Likewise, it’s crucial for those volunteering to collect signatures in support of a pro-abortion ballot initiative to be mindful of the diverse ballot language options — they are not all created equally. They should ensure they understand whether the final wording includes significant elements, such as abortion bans based on viability limits. These viability limits can and will be exploited by anti-abortion politicians.

In Ohio, GOP officials are already floating the unsubstantiated idea that viability starts at 15 weeks immediately after the resounding win for abortion rights.

The political landscape in Missouri, driven by the anti-abortion movement and powerful figures like Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, gives us every reason to expect subversion of democracy and legal standards. Even when Roe was intact, abortion was practically inaccessible in Missouri. If a constitutional ballot is to be pursued, it must robustly protect the reproductive healthcare choices of Missourians from unreliable and undemocratic politicians.

We all know that when the pro-abortion majority gives a little, the anti-abortion minority takes all.

If Missouri’s stark reality isn’t compelling enough, cast a wider lens to witness the harrowing repercussions of politicians meddling in abortion access across multiple states.

Look to Texas: Kate Cox’s wrenching ordeal forced her to flee her own state, denied the right to terminate her wanted pregnancy after a fatal fetal diagnosis very similar to my own experience. Meanwhile, in Ohio, Brittany Watts faces a felony charge of abusing a corpse following a miscarriage at 22 weeks.

These distressing stories underscore the perilous outcomes when politicians dictate reproductive rights, inflicting anguish, injustice and severe harm upon individuals seeking autonomy over their own bodies.

History, and the present moment, demand a singular path forward — one of expansive protections rooted in science as well as the health, safety and dignity of all Missourians. Crucially, this includes abortion protections that entirely exclude elected officials from healthcare decisions, especially those concerning abortion care.

As someone who experienced firsthand the interference of state politicians in medical access and care, I stand far from alone. Urgency, despondency, and outrage have fueled my advocacy, but the solution does not lie in enshrining broken policies that leave behind those disproportionately impacted by abortion bans.

Missouri’s abortion patients and voters deserve better — a future where reproductive justice is not just a concept, but a lived reality.

An Op Ed I wrote is in the St. Louis Post Dispatch today, discussing Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s unconstitutional delays making it impossible for Missourian’s to gather enough signatures to put abortion on the ballot, and let people vote on the issue.

The extreme abortion bill (House Bill 126) becomes effective next week,. It bans abortion after eight weeks with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, and certainly no exceptions for fetal anomalies like Grace’s. It’s utterly outrageous, and transparently shows that they want to control pregnant people, and want this to go to the Supreme Court.

I don’t know if I can express how hard it has been to watch our rights eroding around us after having our own abortion. We feel so strongly that we made the right decision for our desperately wanted daughter. Yet our lawmakers don’t care.

Jim and I repeatedly have testified both via correspondence and in person against bans like this, and our lawmakers don’t listen. They passed it anyway, despite us telling them what a horrible bill it is and how it’d hurt babies like Grace Pearl.

So we turned to the constitutional process next: Governor Parsons signing the bill into the law wasn’t the end: Missouri’s Constitution guarantees citizens the right to stop a new law from taking effect through the referendum process — a vote of the people. On May 28, the referendum process began. Under the Missouri Constitution, we should have had 90 days to collect 100,000 signatures in six different congressional districts. That isn’t what happened. Why? Because Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft chose to abuse the power of his office and join the race to ban safe, legal abortion in our state.

It is utterly unacceptable that Ashcroft is using his position to block the will of the people. His behavior is outrageous, manipulative and unconstitutional. Missourians deserve better, no matter where they stand on abortion. This is about protecting our constitutional rights.

You can read the full Op Ed here:

Robin Utz: Ashcroft's delay tactics defy Missourians' right to challenge abortion law
My husband Jim and I have been married for nine years, and we have wanted a baby more than anything. After four years of trying to conceive, including two rounds of in-vitro fertilization, three embryo transfers, a miscarriage and looking extensively into adoption, we finally got pregnant with our daughter, Grace Pearl.