Mo. abortion-rights campaign raises $9M in October, pushing total to $31M

An effort to legalize abortion in Missouri has raised nearly 10 times more than the political action committees seeking to stop it.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the campaign behind Amendment 3, which would legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability, has raised more than $30.9 million since launching its campaign in 2023, according to fundraising reports filed Monday with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

That includes roughly $9 million since Oct. 1, most of which came from out-of-state groups that aren’t required to disclose their donors.

A half-dozen PACs urging Missourians to vote against Amendment 3 collectively raised around $3.2 million.

This follows a trend seen in other states where abortion has been on the ballot: efforts to legalize or protect the procedure often outspend efforts to defeat it, including in Ohio, where a similar measure won with more than 56% of the vote.

But Missouri is a particularly stark example of abortion-rights groups vastly outspending opposition.

One reason may be that less money is coming from the Catholic Church than in previous campaigns. A recent analysis by NPR and Religion News Service found U.S. bishops have donated significantly less this year to fight abortion measures than in 2022 and 2023.

While Catholic churches in Kansas spent nearly $4 million to fight an abortion referendum in Kansas in 2022, the Missouri dioceses have only invested about $30,000 in Missouri’s fight, the news outlets found.

In an effort to bridge this gap, some congregants are going door to door in opposition to the amendment.

“We pray for your assistance in this fight against Amendment 3,” Eric Holder, a volunteer with the local Knights of Columbus, prayed aloud in early October before canvassing in Independence. “We are like David facing Goliath. We pray that you be with us.”

He bowed his head alongside a half-dozen other knights outside St. Mary’s Catholic Church before heading out to hang “vote no” flyers on about 1,000 doors.

Holder said he became passionate about ending abortion after he converted to Catholicism about 30 years ago and joined in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. He was motivated in part by a relative with an unplanned pregnancy who contemplated abortion before walking into a pregnancy resource center in Kansas City where she was encouraged to keep her baby.

“Missouri could suddenly become one of the worst states in the union in terms of abortion,” Holder said, fearing “the degradation of the family” and a shift to a “pro-death” culture.

In the interview, Holder lamented the dearth of TV ads aired from a “vote no” perspective. Fighting the amendment, he said, felt like “throwing a pebble into a raging ocean.”

But that changed in the coming weeks, as the first ads went up on TV and radio opposing the amendment.

A virtual rally held last week brought out several big names against the amendment, many of whom urged viewers to donate to support the purchase of TV ads.

Hosts of the rally, which included guest appearances by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson and conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly, appealed to viewers to donate to fund for ads to run in the 11 days before the election.

“We need to invest in this fight to get the messages in front of people,” said David Bereit, Founder of 40 Days for Life.

A number of people heeded Bereit’s advice.

As of Monday, groups opposing Amendment 3 have spent about $545,000 on radio and TV ads.

Nearly $442,000 of that total was purchased since Thursday, the day of the rally.

More than half of that spending was in TV ads purchased by the Vitae Foundation, an anti-abortion research organization based in Missouri. The group’s president was among those who spoke at Thursday’s rally, asking for contributions for TV ads. The Vitae Foundation is not registered as a Missouri PAC, and therefore hasn’t reported donors or spending as is required of PACS.

The foundation’s ads do not specifically name Amendment 3, but rather focus on abortion broadly, encouraging viewers to “think about it.”

But spending on anti-abortion ads remains miles behind spending on digital and TV ads encouraging Missourians to “vote yes.”

As of Monday, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom spent nearly $10.4 million on TV ads, and about $22,000 on radio ads, more than 20 times what the opposition has invested.

The campaign has seen widespread support since its inception. More than 380,000 Missourians signed an initiative petition to put the amendment on the ballot, and most Democratic nominees have campaigned on their support for Amendment 3. More than 500 physicians and more than 300 other medical professionals also signed a letter in support of Amendment 3.

No excuse absentee voting in Missouri began Oct. 22. Election officials in Kansas City and St. Louis are already reporting significant early voter turnouts ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

A recent Emerson College poll found 58% of those surveyed support Amendment 3, with 30% opposed. The most recent SLU/YouGov Poll found that 52% supported the amendment and 34% opposed.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

The Independent’s Rudi Keller contributed reporting.