GOP legislators file lawsuit challenging cost estimate of Missouri abortion-rights amendment [View all]
A pair of Republican legislators, along with an anti-abortion activist, filed a lawsuit Monday challenging the cost estimate of an initiative petition seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri constitution.
State Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, and state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, are named plaintiffs in litigation along with Kathy Forck, a longtime anti-abortion advocate from New Bloomfield.
The trio is challenging Republican state Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick’s conclusion that a proposed constitutional amendment rolling back Missouri’s abortion ban would have no cost to state government if it were approved by voters next year.
Instead, plaintiffs in the case believe the cost estimate should state that legalizing abortion in Missouri could result in millions of dollars lost to local governments and billions for the state. Fitzpatrick’s estimate, the lawsuit says, is “inaccurate in a way that is both misleading to voters and obvious to and curable by the auditor.”
“The proposed amendments would allow the destruction of thousands of pre-born Missouri citizens a year, with profound consequences to Missourians that far eclipse financial concerns,” the lawsuit states. “As part of the initiative petition process, however, the state auditor is legally tasked with the grim calculation of the financial costs to Missouri from this enormous human loss.”
https://missouriindependent.com/2023/08/07/gop-legislators-file-lawsuit-challenging-cost-estimate-of-missouri-abortion-rights-amendment/
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