KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Abortion rights have been a huge topic and driving factor in both Kansas and Missouri races over the last couple of years.
Amendment 3 is on the ballot this November in Missouri.
KSHB 41 I-Team reporter Sarah Plake looked at who's funding the campaigns for and against Amendment 3.
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She compared it to the constitutional amendment supporters named Value Them Both in Kansas, which was soundly rejected in the 2022 primary election.
Kansas voters decided to keep abortion care legal.
It was the first post-Roe vote, a race predicted to set the tone in primary elections and have far-reaching implications.
Missouri's Amendment 3 would remove the state's near-total abortion ban.
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Missouri immediately passed a “trigger law,” which enacted the abortion ban that only provides exceptions for a medical emergency.
There are no exceptions for rape and incest.
If voters say “yes” to Amendment 3, it will restore the abortion rights that were already in place prior to the trigger law and allow abortion up to fetal viability.
As KSHB 41 did with Value Them Both, the I-Team followed the money on Amendment 3.
According to campaign finance reports, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, pushing for the “yes” vote, has raised nearly $31 million, as of the end of October.
The opposing side, made up of about six different political action committees, has raised at least $5.5 million, as of the end of October.
It mirrors what happened in Kansas in 2022. The abortion rights groups raised more money than the anti-abortion groups.
A noticeable difference this year: the Catholic Church did not financially show up for Amendment 3 the way it did for the Kansas constitutional amendment.
The Kansas Catholic archdioceses raised at least $3.1 million in 2022. Individual Catholic parishes and groups gathered six-figure sums.
For Amendment 3, the Missouri Catholic dioceses, along with a couple of parishes, have only contributed around $32,000.
The anti-abortion side is receiving donations from conservative Republican groups, Republican campaign committees, CEOs and individual donors, many of whom are retired.
Lamar Hunt Jr., co-owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, donated $300,000 to Leadership for America, one of the anti-abortion PACs.
Originally, a quarterly report for Leadership for America noted Unity Hunt made the donation. Unity Hunt is the wealth management group the Hunt family founded to manage their assets.
However, the report was later amended to reflect it was Hunt Jr. who made the donation, not Unity Hunt.
A Chiefs spokesperson confirmed the donation but had no comment on it.
Former President Trump’s immunity case lawyer, D John Sauer, donated nearly $800,000 to anti-abortion groups.
The major donors on the “yes” side of Amendment 3 are to be expected: the ACLU and Planned Parenthood have given millions.
Outraising those groups are three DC-based progressive social welfare organizations: Our American Future Action, Sixteen Thirty Fund and The Fairness Project. Each of those organizations donated $4 million to $4.5 million each.
The “yes” campaign has received million-plus dollar donations from other similar organizations and $1.5 million from Michael Bloomberg, billionaire founder of Bloomberg Inc. and former mayor of New York City.
While the "yes" campaign has deep support from across the country, the campaign spokesperson said most of its donors are Missouri residents.
The majority of "no" donors are Missouri residents.
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