In Missouri, Amendment 3 would repeal the abortion-rights amendment voters approved in 2024 and restore a ban on abortion, with exceptions for medical emergencies and for cases of rape and incest. The same measure would write a ban on gender transition procedures for minors into the state constitution. It also provides for parental consent when a minor seeks an abortion.
In Nevada, Question 6 would put a right to abortion into the state constitution, running from the start of pregnancy to fetal viability, and later when a provider judges that the mother's life or health requires it. Nevada voters have already said yes once. In 2024 the measure passed with 905,170 votes in favor, about 64 percent, to 501,232 against. Because Nevada requires two votes, this is the final one. If it passes, it becomes part of the constitution on Nov. 24. State law already allows abortion up to 24 weeks.
Idaho voters will consider a measure that would roll back the state's near-total abortion ban, and Virginia has its own measure to establish abortion rights. Pro-life leaders have called the Idaho, Nevada and Virginia proposals "barbaric abortion policy," and an Idaho pro-life organizer says he is preparing a campaign against his state's measure. Abortion-rights coalitions in Missouri have launched a campaign called "Stop the Ban" against Amendment 3.
What the ballot is really asking
Count the votes if you like, my friend. Tally the percentages and study the polls. But strip away the legal language and every one of these ballots asks one old question: whose is the life in the womb?
Nobody can say the child is not alive. The heart is beating within weeks. The child has a father's eyes or a mother's chin already written in the cells. The argument has never really been about whether there is a life. It has been about whether that life is worth protecting when it is inconvenient.
Scripture does not leave us guessing about how Heaven sees it.
"For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139:13)
Look at the verbs. God possessed. God covered. The child in the womb is not a clump of tissue waiting for a legal status. He is a person being knitted together by the hand of the Almighty, and the Lord keeps His own records of the work. The commandment given at Sinai was short enough for a child to memorize: "Thou shalt not kill." (Exodus 20:13)
Now, I know the hard cases. I will not pretend that a frightened girl, or a woman carrying a terrible burden, has an easy road. The church that stands only to point a finger has forgotten its Master. Meet that woman with a meal, a bed, a ride to the doctor, and a friend who will stay. A pro-life people must be a people who show up after the baby is born, too.
But compassion for the mother never requires us to call the child's death a right. Constitutions can be amended by a majority. The law of God cannot. A state may write abortion into its founding charter, as Nevada may do for good, and the child remains exactly what the Creator made him. A vote does not change what is in the womb. It only changes what a society is willing to look away from.
That is what makes these sixteen days weighty. Christians in these four states have a duty as citizens to vote with a conscience bound by the Word of God, to speak plainly to neighbors, and to do it without venom. The person on the other side of the yard sign is not your enemy. He is a soul for whom Christ died, and so is the child whose life hangs on the count.
The ballot will be counted on Nov. 3. Every life is counted by God long before that, and not one of them is a mistake.