Bloomberg gives $1.25M to Missouri abortion rights campaign as fundraising gap grows

The campaign opposing a November ballot measure that would reinstate Missouri’s abortion ban has raised more than $6.5 million — including a recent $1.25 million donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Stop the Ban, formed last year to oppose Amendment 3 on November’s ballot, reported the Bloomberg donation Wednesday to the Missouri Ethics Commission. Bloomberg also donated $1 million in 2024 to Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the campaign that successfully placed an abortion rights amendment on the ballot and helped win its passage.

The leading political action committee on the other side, Her Health, Her Future PAC, has raised just over $1 million as of this week. The group is backed by Gov. Mike Kehoe and Missouri First Lady Claudia Kehoe, who serves as the PAC’s treasurer.

In November, Missourians will again be asked to decide on the fate of abortion rights. This time, lawmakers are asking voters to repeal the reproductive rights amendment approved in 2024 and reinstate a near-total ban on abortion.

The proposal, drafted and placed on the ballot by lawmakers in 2025, would ban abortions with exceptions for medical emergencies and pregnancies resulting from rape or incest during the first 12 weeks. It would also put a ban on gender-affirming care for minors into the state constitution.

That care is already prohibited under state law. In January, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the law barring minors from receiving gender transition surgeries, cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers, as well as a prohibition on Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care for patients of all ages.

Other top donors to Stop the Ban include the members of the PAC’s coalition, including the ACLU of Missouri, the Fairness Project, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers Action, Abortion Action Missouri, PROMO and Beacon Reproductive Health Network. Tom Bastian, a spokesperson with the campaign, said Stop the Ban has also received donations from Missourians in more than 50 of the state’s 114 counties.

Missouri Right to Life PAC is also working to pass the new abortion restrictions. As of Tuesday, the group spent about $230,000 on the campaign, including yard signs, speaking engagements, and “Make Missouri Pro-Life Again” brochures, according to the latest finance reports. 

Missourians getting abortion pills by mail from out-of-state providers quadrupled since 2023

With Tuesday’s primary over, spending by both sides is expected to accelerate as the Nov. 3 election approaches.

In November 2024, with a near-total abortion ban in place, Missourians voted to amend the state constitution to guarantee the right to reproductive health care, including abortion up to the point of fetal viability. 

The campaign was expensive and the results were close, with about 52% of Missourians voting in favor of the amendment. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, whose coalition included many of the same organizations behind Stop the Ban, raised more than $31.5 million in 2024. 

At the same time, a patchwork of half a dozen PACs trying to defeat the 2024 abortion rights amendment raised about $5 million. The largest single contribution was $1 million from a group tied to conservative activist Leonard Leo.

A lengthy court battle followed the 2024 election as Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri challenged dozens of abortion regulations still in state law that prevented providers from immediately offering abortion services again. 

In June, after about 18 months of litigation, a Jackson County judge overturned nearly all the challenged regulations on abortion providers. 

Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas City, Columbia and St. Louis have been offering procedural abortion appointments since last year. Those clinics, along with clinics in Gladstone and Springfield, also began offering medication abortions following the court decision in June.