Missouri’s AG Spent $167,000 of Public Money to Undo the Abortion Vote. It’s a Test Run.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway spent a hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars of public money on an ad built to help overturn the abortion rights Missouri voters passed themselves two years ago. And she wrote it with a group that says abortion has never once saved a woman’s life.Gloria Steinem died this week at ninety two. She was born when all of this was illegal. She lived to watch Missouri women walk into a voting booth in 2024 and win it back. She died the same week Hanaway started billing them for the ad to undo it.Three hundred fifty radio and TV stations, running through September thirtieth, paid out of a state account named, I promise, the Merchandising Practices Revolving Fund. KSDK in St. Louis pulled the records Tuesday. The ad warns Missourians their abortion clinics don’t meet basic medical standards. Her office files it under women’s health.In Missouri, a school board can’t spend one dollar of public money on a ballot measure. The state Supreme Court upheld that statute in 2022. It covers cities, counties, school districts. It does not cover the attorney general. A school board could be prosecuted for what Hanaway just did. In November, Missourians vote on writing an abortion ban into their constitution. Hanaway endorsed it. Hanaway bought the ad.Her office says it’s just consumer information. It never mentions Amendment 3, never mentions the election. My dude, a burning building never mentions arson either.Then there’s her co-author. Hanaway made this with the American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNs, a group that thinks IUDs are abortions. That thinks a raped child should give birth. That thinks when a pregnancy is killing you the answer is a c-section, even when nothing survives it. She made a patient safety ad with the only doctors in America who don’t believe the emergency is real.Before 2024, Missouri was a near-total ban state. Voters ended it with a measure called Amendment 3. So when Republicans wrote this year’s repeal, they named it Amendment 3. Same number, two years later, opposite result. They’re betting Missourians remember voting yes and don’t read the rest. And the rest writes the ban into the constitution permanently, with a ban on gender affirming care for minors stapled on, because if you’re already lying about what’s on the ballot, why stop at one lie.This is not one weird lady in Jefferson City. Ron DeSantis ran this play in Florida in 2024, and a statewide grand jury just found his administration misappropriated funds doing it. No charges. The grand jury’s explanation was that virtually everyone involved is a lawyer and acted on the advice of other lawyers. Meanwhile Idaho’s attorney general, Raul Labrador, just issued an opinion that churches spending against ballot measures don’t have to disclose their donors, because the money arrives as an act of worship. What the actual feck. Tithe on Sunday, dark money on Monday. Idaho votes on its abortion ban in November too.Three states, one playbook, two months out. If it works in Missouri, it’s the template for every state with a ballot measure.Gloria Steinem spent sixty years arguing that women should get to decide this. Missouri women decided. Catherine Hanaway sent them the invoice.Sources:https://missouriindependent.com/2026/09/01/missouri-ag-spends-state-funds-on-abortion-psa-ahead-of-november-amendment-3-vote/https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=115.646https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/03/us/gloria-steinem-dead-obitAbortion, Every Day Get full access to The Rogue Voice aka Linsay Rousseau at linsayrousseau.substack.com/subscribe