When it goes into effect in December, Amendment 3 will protect abortion up to what’s known as fetal viability — which is about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

When Missouri on Tuesday became the first state to overturn a near-total abortion ban by the vote of the people, Desiree White cried happy tears. Twenty-five years earlier, she and her husband chose to terminate a pregnancy they very much wanted after they received a diagnosis of a fatal fetal abnormality.

Last night, Missouri was among the ten states where voters cemented reproductive rights in state constitutions. More than two years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to an abortion,