Come November, Missouri will be one of four states with abortion on the ballot. But as we’ve previously reported… things are already shaping up to be a mess.
To recap, the state’s already made it clear where it stands on abortion access. In 2024, nearly 70% of voters in the deep-red state enshrined abortion rights, through a ballot measure called Amendment 3. However, the Missouri Supreme Court restored the ban in May 2025, and this year, anti-abortion activists have successfully brought a new ballot measure to repeal the former… also named Amendment 3. (It gets dodgier. In January, a state appeals court rewrote the language on the ballot because it was too misleading.)
Flash forward to today—about three months before voters head to the polls—Attorney General Catherine Hanaway (R-Mo.), who’s been working hard to keep on the lineage of anti-abortion freaks in her office, is apparently splashing out on anti-abortion PSAs. Per KSDK-TV, Hanaway’s office has written and aired a $167,000 video warning people about abortion clinics, in videos that have been shared as early as mid-August. Classy!
“This misuse and abuse of our hard-earned money by the Attorney General’s office is the latest in a string of politician’s dirty tricks to try to take power away from Missouri families,” Mallory Schwarz, executive director of Abortion Action Missouri told Jezebel in a statement. “Missourians work hard for our families and we deserve to be respected by our politicians.”
The video features Dr. Katy Liu, a St. Louis-based doctor who says “abortion clinics in Missouri are not required to meet the same basic medical standards as other healthcare facilities.” The clip ends with the text: “This message is provided by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office.”
Per a spokesperson from Hanaway’s office, the “PSA” was written by the AG’s office “with minor input from the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs”—an organization’s that frequently been criticized by ACOG, which is actually interested in essential, sometimes life-saving care, for women.
The spokesperson added that the video was paid for through the office’s Merchasing Practices Revolving Fund, meaning it was bankrolled by state funds. While it doesn’t explicitly mention Amendment 3 or the midterms, the timing feels… loaded, to say the least.
In the video, Liu also references a ruling made in June, in which Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang struck down various anti-abortion laws within the state saying they were unconstitutional. “For years, our laws protected women by requiring clinics to obtain licenses, pass basic inspections, and have emergency protocols,” Liu says. “But Planned Parenthood sued, trying to block safety requirements that protect women.” (PP and ACLU Missouri challenged the aforementioned laws as unconstitutional, arguing that they weren’t as much about protecting women as they were ensuring a near-total ban on abortion.)
“Governor Kehoe and his cronies in the Attorney General’s office are so obsessed with overturning our votes and banning abortion that they won’t take no for an answer,” further explains Schwarz. “But Missourians are seeing right through them. Missourians resoundingly rejected their attempt to gut our right to vote directly on issues in August and in November, Missourians will again say NO to abortion bans and NO on Amendment 3.”
