Emily Curiel/The Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service/Getty

Reproductive rights advocates in Missouri have beaten back a last-ditch effort by Republican officials to stop voters from having their say on abortion in November. On Tuesday afternoon, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered that a proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will remain on this year’s ballot.

The ruling ensures that Missourians will have the opportunity to vote on Amendment 3, which would establish a right to “reproductive freedom”—defined as the ability to make and carry out one’s own decisions about contraception, abortion, and healthcare during pregnancy. If approved, the amendment will set a high legal bar for how the state can regulate abortion prior to “viability”—the difficult-to-pinpoint moment when a fetus becomes likely to survive outside the uterus. After viability, the measure would let the state ban abortion, with exceptions to protect the life and health of the pregnant patient.

The decision caps a roller-coaster of a year for Missouri reproductive-rights advocates, who faced hurdle after hurdle to get the measure on the November ballot. Supporters gathered more than 380,000 signatures this spring, circumventing a legislature dominated by hard-line abortion foes who passed the state’s current, near-total abortion ban. A St. Louis University/YouGov poll of 900 likely voters in mid-August found that 52 percent supported Amendment 3 and 34 percent opposed it.

“Today’s decision is a victory for both direct democracy and reproductive freedom in Missouri,” Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group behind the amendment, said in a statement. “This fight was not just about this amendment—it was about defending the integrity of the initiative petition process and ensuring that Missourians can shape their future directly.”

Ballot initiatives have become a central part of the strategy to restore and expand abortion rights in the post-Roe v. Wade era. They’re also key to Democrats’ efforts to turn out voters in battleground states in this year’s tight presidential election. Abortion rights are popular, even in solidly red........

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