Dr. Jennifer Smith remembers canvassing to overturn Missouri’s abortion ban back in 2024.
asserted
Smith → remember → 2024
Now she’s spending her weekends knocking doors in her white coat to make sure her home state doesn’t ban abortion again.
asserted
state → spend → abortion
Smith, an OB-GYN, had seen what happened to her patients after Roe v. Wade was overturned and a “trigger” law immediately went into effect banning virtually all abortions in the state.
asserted
law → see → state
“You could see how scared people were to just consider being pregnant in the state of Missouri,” she said.
uncertain
she → see → Missouri
“I had husbands feel the need to tell me that I should save their wives if something should happen in the pregnancy.
asserted
something → have → pregnancy
And that’s a pretty terrifying place to be.”
asserted
that → ’ → ?
Among them are Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who has made himself a leading figure in the national push to ban abortion pills; his wife Erin, a top attorney at the Alliance Defending Freedom; and Ed Martin, a stop-the-stealer who helped craft the GOP’s fetal personhood platform in 2024.
asserted
who → make → 2024
And once the trigger ban was enacted, the medical-legal landscape became even darker for both patients and doctors: OB-GYN residency applications in the state declined by 25 percent.
asserted
applications → enact → percent
“As a physician, it feels like we have to be afraid that if we take care of patients in the way that we normally would, that we might go to prison for that,” Smith said.
uncertain
Smith → feel → that
People who needed abortions were forced to spend time and money on travel, and made to experience some of the worst moments of their lives isolated in an unfamiliar place.
asserted
who → need → place
Some drove for hours on end while in danger of sepsis or hemorrhage just to reach a hospital that would treat them.
asserted
that → drive → them
“I had a patient who was pregnant twice in one year, and both times her baby had a chromosomal abnormality,” Smith remembered.
asserted
Smith → have → abnormality
“Twice she and her husband had to make the most difficult decision a parent can make: to end the pregnancy.
asserted
parent → have → pregnancy
And twice they had to leave the state to get the care they needed, away from their home, their doctor, everything familiar.”
asserted
they → have → home
In 2024, Smith canvassed for a referendum to repeal the state’s near-total ban.
asserted
Smith → canvass → ban
Missouri voters passed that referendum—called Amendment 3—with 51.6 percent of the vote.
asserted
voters → pass → vote
The first state to enact a “trigger ban” became the first state to reject that ban at the ballot box.
asserted
state → enact → box
But that wasn’t the end of the story: even after the ban was overturned, Missouri implemented dozens of restrictions on how abortion clinics could operate—ensuring that in much of the state, abortion was legal in theory but not in practice.
uncertain
abortion → overturn → practice
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers worked to craft another attempt at a full-scale ban.
asserted
lawmakers → work → ban
Now, Smith is back to knocking doors in her white coat.
asserted
Smith → knock → coat
This time, she’s asking people to vote no on 2026’s Amendment 3—which, despite sharing a number with the 2024 amendment, does the opposite.
asserted
which → ask → opposite
And unlike the first Amendment 3, this one was initiated by the legislature, not by citizens.
asserted
one → initiate → citizens
“We have voters that we believe are confused,” said Stop The Ban campaign manager Alessia Modjarrad.
asserted
Modjarrad → have → Ban
“They consider themselves for abortion, for reproductive freedom—but the language is confusing, and they’re hypothetically voting yes, but really they should be voting no.”
asserted
they → consider → no
In 2025, Republican lawmakers introduced the current Amendment 3 proposal to reestablish a constitutional abortion ban and overturn the 2024 referendum.
asserted
lawmakers → introduce → referendum
To increase their chances of success, they adopted a strategy right out of the Trump 2.0 “Kamala is for they/them” playbook: including language in the ballot measure that would change the Missouri constitution to “prohibit gender transition procedures for minors,” banning doctors from providing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to treat kids with gender dysphoria.
asserted
that → increase → dysphoria
Trans youth health care is already illegal in Missouri under a law enacted in 2023.
asserted
care → enact → 2023
But you wouldn’t know that from Amendment 3’s marketing.
asserted
you → know → marketing
Some of the same people who pushed to ban gender-affirming care for Missouri kids in 2023 are now fighting to enshrine that ban in the state’s constitution.
asserted
who → push → constitution
Prominent among them is Jamie Reed, a former Washington University Transgender Center clinic employee turned prolific speaker on the anti-trans circuit.
asserted
Reed → turn → circuit
“If we talk to people about the trans part of this amendment,” Reed reportedly told a room full of St. Louis County Republicans in September, “we can get it to pass.”
uncertain
it → talk → September
Reed—who spent much of the past 3 years touring state legislatures to push trans care bans nationwide—also became the face of a marketing campaign by the Her Health, Her Future PAC, a group run by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s wife, Claudia.
asserted
who → spend → wife
“I worked in a gender transition clinic, and saw how children are manipulated into undergoing irreversible surgeries,” Reed said.
asserted
Reed → work → surgeries
Reed has, notably, failed to back up these statements in court, has had her characterizations of what went on at the clinic where she worked disputed by patients and parents, and is not a medical professional.
asserted
she → fail → patients
But her words are backed by $5.3 million in advertising money, and abortion opponents are counting on her story to resonate with voters: in one 2023 poll, a majority of Missourians supported heavily restricting transition-related care for young people.
asserted
majority → back → people
“The opposition is not talking about abortion because they know they will lose,” said state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs of St. Louis.
asserted
Fuchs → talk → Louis
“We already won the battle for abortion here in Missouri, and that is why they added gender-affirming care.”
asserted
they → win → care
State Rep. Wick Thomas, Missouri’s first nonbinary state legislator, says they’re faced with colleagues wanting to bring up trans kids every day of the week.
asserted
colleagues → say → week
Republicans don’t necessarily see abortion as a winning issue anymore, even in a conservative state flooded with pro-life money.
asserted
Republicans → see → money
But fearmongering about trans kids, Thomas said, might still win.
uncertain
Thomas → fearmongere → kids
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
