Missouri’s abortion ban is back from legal limbo, at least for the moment. On Tuesday, the state’s Supreme Court tossed out two lower court rulings that had blocked enforcement of the ban, effectively restoring it—despite a larger showdown looming on the horizon.
The high court didn’t deliver a final judgment on the law’s constitutionality. Instead, it told a lower court judge she’d used the wrong playbook. Specifically, Circuit Judge Jerri Zhang had issued injunctions halting the ban, but the Supreme Court said she failed to apply a stricter legal standard required for blocking state laws. That sends the case back to her court with an invitation: try again, but this time follow the high court’s rules.
The abortion ban originally snapped into effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, making Missouri one of the first states to outlaw the procedure almost entirely. That ban has seesawed through courts ever since, with the latest legal volley arriving just months after voters narrowly approved Amendment 3, a ballot measure intended to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood, armed with that voter-backed amendment, sued to kill the ban. Judge Zhang initially agreed in part, calling the law unconstitutional in December—though abortion access didn’t fully resume, thanks to leftover licensing rules. In February, she struck down those too, opening the door for services to restart.
But the state’s attorney general wasn’t having it. His appeal reached the state’s top court, which stopped short of permanently siding with either camp. Instead, it paused the lower court’s rulings and left the abortion ban standing—for now.
This is only round one. The core lawsuit challenging the ban hasn’t gone to trial yet. And while abortion rights were narrowly upheld at the ballot box last year, Republican legislators have already teed up a future countermeasure that could claw back that constitutional protection—possibly as soon as 2026.
Missouri’s legal and political battles over abortion aren’t cooling down—they’re just shifting venues.
