Shawn Johnson woke up last Monday planning to vote for Donald Trump in November and legalize abortion in Missouri.
But the 48-year-old Independence resident plans to overturn Missouri’s abortion ban after speaking with Eric Holder, a Knights of Columbus volunteer and member of St. Mary’s Parish in Independence. He changed his attitude about the Third Amendment.
Holder was touring the neighborhood trying to drum up opposition to the proposal. By then, when he arrived at Johnson’s home a few hours after starting his mission, he had a message that seemed to resonate: the Third Amendment would also somehow legalize sex-reassignment surgery for minors. I decided to hone my sales pitch to focus solely on that message.
“I vote for abortion. It’s a woman’s right. Let her do it,” said Johnson, standing under a Confederate flag outside her home in suburban Kansas City. “But the other thing, the reassignment of gender, I don’t believe in.”
Amendment 3, if passed by a simple majority of voters, would provide all Missourians with “prenatal care; “The right to make and implement decisions regarding all matters related to reproductive health care, including care, postpartum care, antenatal care, postpartum care, postpartum care, and postpartum care.” Abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birth conditions. ”
This provision has been a target of anti-abortion activists who seek to undermine the amendment by saying it would legalize gender-affirming care for minors.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson and Sen. Josh Hawley argued that the Third Amendment allows minors to undergo sex reassignment surgery without parental consent.
The claim has also appeared on billboards in several Catholic dioceses in the state, in anti-Third Amendment documents, and in church bulletins.
But legal and medical experts interviewed by The Independent say this claim is at best a stretch and at worst a flat-out lie. They say gender-affirming care is not affected by the Third Amendment.
“Honesty in public debate is critical to the survival of our republic,” said Chris Kelly, a former judge and Democratic state representative from Columbia. “It is completely legitimate and honorable to fight this on the abortion issue. But creating a grossly inaccurate strawman is deceptive and destructive to society.”
Kelly Gillespie, director of the St. Louis University Health Law Research Center, said the examples of reproductive health care listed in the amendment are for people who are trying to prevent pregnancy, are expecting pregnancy, are currently pregnant, or have recently become pregnant. He said this is because it only applies to pregnant people. , does not apply to gender reassignment surgery.
“Even if we accept that it could have such wild and far-reaching implications, there is still a way in the amendment that would allow the government to pass legislation around this topic.” she said. “It just says it has to be done by the least restrictive means and there has to be a significant and compelling government interest.”
Gillespie said for the amendment to include gender-affirming health care, it would have to say so directly.
“It’s really reductionist,” Gillespie says. “To talk about gender-affirming care as if it only involves what’s between someone’s legs.”
Kelly Stork, a licensed clinical social worker and gender care therapist in St. Louis, said this particular method of campaigning against the Third Amendment harms members of the transgender community.
“They will continue to use discriminatory, hateful, and dangerous rhetoric against transgender people and people to vote the way they want to vote,” Stock said. “They will continue to use transgender people for their own gain. We’ve seen it over and over again, and it’s abhorrent and really disgusting. I think it’s a thing.”
Legal disagreements continue
Ever since she went to the Missouri Supreme Court in September to argue unsuccessfully to take the Third Amendment off the November ballot, Mary Katherine Martin has had little time to catch her breath.
“We’re in a full-on ground war with no funding,” Martin said. “This is a communication challenge.”
The Coalition Supporting the Third Amendment has raised more than $25 million. The two largest political action committees fighting this have collectively raised just under $1 million.
A recent poll showed that the abortion amendment was supported by 52% of those surveyed.
“By constantly talking about abortion, we are losing sight of the issue,” said Martin, an attorney with the Thomas More Society, a Catholic legal group.
Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, anti-abortion activist Kathy Falk, Thomas More Society attorney Mary Katherine Martin, state Rep. Hannah Kelly and others will hear oral arguments Tuesday in the abortion rights amendment case. standing on the steps of the Missouri Supreme Court (Anna Spoehl/Missouri Independent)
This means that aside from the occasional billboard or radio ad, the Vote No effort relies on word of mouth to spread its message. That includes local churches and activists distributing fliers like those created by Martin, who recently created a guide to “deciphering” the Third Amendment.
Her arguments against Amendment 3 include Martin’s claim that the amendment is “the ACLU’s Christmas list,” including legalizing gender-affirming health care.
The ACLU is currently suing on behalf of transgender children and their parents in a lawsuit challenging a 2023 state law restricting minors’ access to cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and gender reassignment surgery. .
“I would love to hear a credible argument that reproductive organ replacement is not a reproductive health care issue,” Martin said. “Because that’s the only way to be exempt from this.”
Martin said the drafters of the amendment did not clearly define its content, pointing to language that said the amendment pertains to “all issues related to reproductive health care.”
“We’re left to guess what they intend and what they don’t intend. That’s a game no one should play,” Martin said.
Tori Shafer, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, called attempts to link the Third Amendment to gender-affirming health care “scare tactics,” adding that the definition is written into the amendment. The ACLU of Missouri is part of a coalition supporting this amendment, along with Planned Parenthood of Missouri and Abortion Action Group.
“That’s why the accusations and false statements they keep making about this unlimited right are completely false,” she said.
Schaefer said if the Third Amendment wins, opposition arguments will shift to making the amendment as limited and restrictive as possible.
If Amendment 3 passes, it will be challenged in court on a variety of fronts, from attempts to dismantle current state laws regulating abortion providers to defining fetal viability. Asked whether anyone would test the proposed amendment’s coverage of gender reassignment surgery in court, Schaefer said it would be up to judges to decide.
Judges, lawyers, medical experts exchange opinions
Heather Walter McCabe, an associate professor at Saint Louis University School of Law with expertise in LGBTQ health care access, said gender-affirming care treats gender dysphoria. She said similar legal arguments have been made in favor of both gender affirmation and reproductive health care, but there are no cases she is aware of where the former has been considered reproductive health care. .
Walter McCabe, a lawyer and social worker, said, “Just because they use the same legal arguments, because they’re both about bodily autonomy, doesn’t mean that gender-affirming care is reproductive It doesn’t mean it’s health care.”
She noted that gender-affirming care is already defined by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health in their own standards of care, separate from reproductive health care. Ta.
Michael Wolff, former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and dean emeritus of Saint Louis University School of Law, said there is no way a reasonable judge could define gender reassignment surgery as reproductive health care.
“Polls tell us what to lie about to hurt this bill’s chances of passing,” Wolff said.
He said that in the legal world, every word of a law is known by the companies that administer it, and that’s how the Third Amendment defines reproductive health care.
Mr. Martin disagreed, arguing that every word has a separate meaning.
“Look, a judge interpreting this is going to be looking for guardrails,” Martin said. “Judges are not going to want to interpret it as broadly as it’s written, but there’s nothing there to help them.”
Jamil Fields Allsbrook, an assistant professor at Saint Louis University School of Law who specializes in reproductive health, rights, justice and health equity, said he understands there can be confusion over colloquialism and legal interpretation. He said he is doing so.
But she believes judges would have no problem limiting the scope of the amendment to exclude gender-affirming medical care.
“The challenge is that you can’t point to, ‘There’s a universal definition of reproductive health care in U.S. law.’ There isn’t,” she said. “I think that’s why people are understanding the language.”
Tori Shafer, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, speaks to the media after a Third Amendment case outside the Cole County Courthouse on Friday, September 6, 2024. (Anna Sporere/Missouri Independent)
Marcia McCormick, a professor of law and women’s and gender studies at Saint Louis University, said that constitutional provisions list examples of what would apply under amendments, and judges can still amend them within the context of those examples. He said that there is an obligation to interpret the
“The language is pretty narrow, so it would be a stretch for a judge to look at this amendment and say, ‘Well, it’s actually about broad bodily autonomy,'” McCormick said, adding that medical Gender-affirming medicine adds: This is something that helps a person follow the physiological and social expectations of someone of their gender and does not necessarily overlap directly with reproductive health care.
“If there is a loophole that protects medical care for transgender people, I will not hesitate,” said Stock, a social worker.
But she doesn’t have the legal expertise to talk about how the Third Amendment affects the lives of transgender Missourians. Instead, her goal is to speak up for the transgender youth she works with and ensure their voices aren’t drowned out by demonization.
“People are really scared. People are losing access to care. People are not as safe,” Stock said. “The idea that we continue to label them as dangerous, sick, disturbing, and strange is the belief that rejecting and dehumanizing these people is in some sense a unilateral step in the right direction.” We are continuing the system.”
