Read Amendment 3 to understand what it does and doesn’t do

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about Amendment 3. Claims are being made that passage of Amendment 3 will affect aspects of medical care that are completely unrelated to the right to reproductive freedom. Amendment 3 can only do what it says on the ballot:  establish the right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, without government interference. It would allow regulation of reproductive health care to improve or maintain the health of the patient. It would allow abortion to be restricted or banned once the fetus is viable, except to protect the life or health of the woman. In short, it would restore doctors’ ability to provide appropriate care for women’s reproductive health without fear of imprisonment.

Amendment 3 does not affect transgender health care, or allow medical malpractice, or keep people from suing their medical providers. When these allegations were brought to the Missouri Supreme Court in a lawsuit in September, they were rejected. But they are still being pushed by opponents’ ads.

Unlike current Missouri laws, Amendment 3 DOES allow doctors to help victims of rape and incest, women who are miscarrying or whose fetuses cannot survive, and women whose own medical conditions make a pregnancy a danger to their health, their future ability to have children, or their lives.

Please read Amendment 3 and vote Yes to reinstate modern medical practices that help women plan their families, survive their pregnancies and continue to thrive and sustain their families and homes.

Mahree Skala, Columbia

Let’s prioritize more renewable energy for Columbia

Columbia should accelerate its efforts to switch to renewable energy. Last year about 22% of Columbia Water & Light’s electric usage was purchased or generated from renewables — about 3% less than where the city wanted to be according to Columbia’s Renewable Energy Plan.

In 2023, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change introduced a new worldwide deadline to avoid the most catastrophic climate impacts. To limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius, global greenhouse gas emissions must decline by 60 percent by 2035 compared with 2019 levels (Climatewire, March 20). We all need to do our part. From 2015 to 2023, Columbia managed about a 7% GHG reduction — about a percent a year. That rate of reduction is too slow.

Although the time to avoid the worst effects of climate change grows very short there are tangible steps our city can take to expand to 100% renewables within the next decade and perhaps by 40% to 65% by 2030.  For instance, Columbia’s biggest coal burning energy source, the plant at Sikeston, is expected to close as early as 2028. The city should get ready to replace Sikeston with renewables by then.

In 2011,  the year I bought my house, a catastrophic tornado struck Joplin. Back then, insurance agents told me that rates would have to rise substantially for all Missourians on account of that event alone. Joplin’s misfortune and that subsequent rise in our insurance rates were not demonstrably due to the climate crisis, but they are emblematic of the financial, material, ecological costs and personal hardship we face from increasing droughts, fires and floods. No doubt, expanding renewables will result in increased utility costs. These costs should be compared to the costs associated with doing nothing.

Howard Fenster, Columbia

Abortion Rights and “Yes” on Amendment 3

Contrary to the fundamentalist Christians’ and the official Roman Catholics’ viewpoint, many to a majority of people who identify as Christian support the right of a pregnant woman to determine what is most helpful for/to their bodies.

In the debate about when human life begins, The Bible repeatedly states that life begins when God breathes breath into an otherwise breathless/lifeless body.

In the second creation of “man” story, the writer states in Genesis 2:7 (NRSV):

“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”  No breath, no life!

A second example of life associated with breath is in Ezekiel 37 about the valley of dry bones symbolic of ancient Israel being destroyed by sinful acts and then given resurrection hope.  One of repeated statements is in Ezekiel 37:5: 

“Thus says the Lord God to these bones:  I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall l live.”  Again, no breath, no life!

Jesus of Nazareth is not quoted as addressing the unborn “right”, rather, he repeatedly emphasized the right to life needs for the poor, the hungry, the lame, the sick, the widow, the adulterous woman. the dispossessed, etc. all of whom are living human beings who breathe.

We all agree that when a person stops breathing that that person is dead, and we stop attending to the lifeless body as being alive.  So it is with a fetus that is a “lifeless” part of a woman’s body until it can breathe on its own at “viability”.

The Bible is studied by Jews, and by Muslims, and by Christians and learn this concept of human life beginning with breath, but then some then ignore this authoritative teaching and create another scenario.

Amendment 3 stresses the human right to have an abortion until “viability”, now around the 6-7^th month of pregnancy (virtually no women wait that long).  When the word “health” is used, that includes mental, physical, psychological, economic, and moral aspects involved in the decision process of terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

There is a crucial difference between the statute RSMo 188.017 ban on abortion and Amendment 3 to the Constitution protecting a woman’s right to personally determine the big picture approach to her health and well being.  The statute makes criminals out of health care providers and victimizes women found in a very difficult life situation.  Whereas the Amendment decriminalizes the painful process involved in terminating an unwanted pregnancy  and encourages doing responsible health care.

Life is packed with choices between what is most helpful and what is not so helpful.  Amendment 3 places no restrictions on women who want to have a baby but also protects those who cannot complete that ideal cycle.  In any and all cases, the government/big brother run by men must not interfere in a personal decision over a “breathless” part of her body.

Paul Lehmann, ordained minister and candidate for governor in the Green Party