support comes from St Louis Public Library Foundation helping the library serve children and their families with programs and services needed to become lifelong readers more information about the foundation is at slpl.org this is St Louis on the air from St Louis Public [Music] Radio I'm elain [Music] Chaw yesterday morning the Missouri Supreme Court heard oral arguments to determine whether an abortion legalization measure will be on the state's November ballot by mid-afternoon the Supreme Court ruled that missourians will get to vote on legalizing abortion this fall to get a grasp on what led to yesterday's fast-tracked Supreme Court decision and what it means I spoke with stlpr politics correspondent and politically speaking host Jason Rosen bomb I started by asking him what the court decided they decided that Amendment three which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution will go before voters in November there was some doubt for about 90 hours whether that was going to happen thanks to this Cole County judge's ruling that everybody sort of woke up to on Saturday um and the court has not actually explained its reasoning but they did say it's on the ballot Secretary of State J Ashcroft told me that it is back and now this fight overboard abortion rights in Missouri moves away from the courtroom and into the Electoral Arena M now Jason you said Saturday now last week on Friday night is when that Cole County Judge ruled that the amendment would not be on the ballot so why did this reach the level of the Missouri Supreme Court to begin with and what legal arguments were at play here so just to correct myself yes it happened on Friday night but I said Saturday because I woke up to this news after going to bed early on Friday so the argument that Cole County Judge Chris limau put forward was that because amendment 3 did not contain specific language saying that this could repeal certain laws dealing with abortion it ran a fou of a state statute that in his view uh required that sort of thing um the plaintiffs and or not the plaintiffs the the pro- amendment three people strongly disputed that what the law actually said and if you actually look at the law they were making the argument that it said you need to show where statutory language is repealed our constitutional language is repealed and they contended limbo misconstrued the word or to mean and and limbo thought you needed both when they said that you only needed one or the other depending on whether you were putting forth a statutory initiative or change to the Missouri Constitution which that's a little bit wonky but of put on it the amendment people that Lim misinterpreted the requirements here whether that was the reasoning that the court came up with we don't know because they haven't released the the reasoning but it it will will remain to be seen whether they found that argument effective and it did go to the Supreme Court because Missouri State uh Missouri Secretary of State J afro took the action against the amendment and decertified it from the ballot right well that's one of the things that was at play but I think it went to the Supreme Court very very quickly because there was this very tight deadline to take things off the ballot yesterday was that deadline this decision came out late Friday the attorneys on all sides spent all weekend coming up with briefs and figuring out a schedule it was actually pretty remarkable how the attorneys um I would say for both the plaintiffs against amendment three and the lawyers defending Amendment Three just work so quickly to make this happen and I I'm not a lawyer but I do commend them for for putting forth really wellth thought out briefs in such a short time but clearly the Supreme Court has to decide one one argument or another and they chose the the side of people who are supporting Amendment Three and what were the reactions that you were seeing to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling um abortion rights supporters are relieved this was was a very stressful 90 hours for them to put it mildly um I think Democrats are pretty happy too you saw supportive statements from democratic gubernatorial nominee Crystal Quaid as well as the Democratic party RIT large uh Republicans were disappointed with the ruling they they thought it shouldn't be on the ballot but they said that they're going to try to fight this at uh at The Ballot Box I I think that like left unsaid in their statements is there aren't a lot of Republicans who are confident that they can actually defeat this primarily because other states even red states have supported initiatives that back up abortion rights um primarily because there are a lot of Republicans who are support abortion rights and if you get enough of them and combine them with most Democrats that's enough to to pass something like this so Jason briefly Missouri voters are going to get a chance to decide on this issue in November so if the ballot measure does pass you know what then and are the abortion restrictions then lifted immediately or is it more complicated than that oh it's much more complicated than that what will happen is abortion rights supporters will file lawsuits against specific laws they will use the amendment as Foundation to try to get them struck down um and it will probably be a long process like nobody should expect abortion restrictions to just magically disappear when this goes into effect um and I think people should also be prepared for another abortion initiative that may undo are are change this if it passes the legislature has already said members of the legislature had already said that that's a possibility Jason rosom STL PR's politics correspondent and host of the politically speaking hour on St Louis on the air Jason thanks as always uh and appreciate the breakdown thank [Music] you this episode was produced by Danny wh owski our executive producer is Alex Hoyer St Louis on the air is a production of St Louis 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