St. Charles, Missouri – Democrat Lucas Kunce is trying to impose reproductive care restrictions on Sen. Josh Hawley, betting it will boost his chances of unseating the Republican incumbent in November.
In a recent ad campaign, Kunce accuses Hawley of endangering reproductive care, including IVF. Looking directly into the camera, with tears in her eyes, a Missouri mother identified only as Jessica explains how she struggled for years to conceive.
“There are efforts now to ban IVF, and Josh Hawley started them,” says Jessica. “I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me I can't have the son I deserve.”
Never mind that IVF is legal in Missouri, or that Hawley has said he supports limited access to abortion as a “pro-life” Republican. In key races across the country, Democrats are labeling their Republican rivals as threats to women's health after a broad erosion of reproductive rights since The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wadeincluding almost the total state ban on abortionefforts to restrict medication abortion and a court decision that Limited IVF in Alabama.
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In addition to the messaging campaigns, Democrats hope ballot measures to guarantee abortion rights in as many as 13 states, including Missouri, Arizona and Florida, will help boost turnout in their favor.
The issue puts the GOP on the defensive, said J. Miles Coleman, an election analyst at the University of Virginia.
“I really don't think Republicans have found a good way to respond to that yet,” he said.
Abortion is such a hot-button issue in Arizona, for example, that election analysts say a U.S. House seat held by Republican Juan Ciscomani is now a toss-up.
Hawley appears less dangerous, for now. He has a big lead in the polls, though Kunce outpaced him in the most recent quarter, with $2.25 million in donations compared to the incumbent's $846,000, according to campaign finance reports. Even so, Hawley's war chest is more than double that of Kunce.
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Kunce, a Navy veteran and competition advocate, said he likes his odds.
“I just don't think we're going to lose,” he told KFF Health News. “Missourians want freedom and the ability to control their own lives.”
Hawley's campaign declined to comment. He has backed a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks and has said he supports exceptions for rape and incest and to protect the lives of pregnant women. Missouri's state ban is almost total, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
“This is Josh Hawley's life's mission. It's his family's business,” Kunce said, nodding to Erin Morrow Hawley, the senator's wife, a lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in March on behalf of activists seeking to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
State abortion rights have won everywhere they've been on the ballot since the end Roe in 2022, even in Republican-led Kentucky and Ohio.
An abortion rights ballot initiative is also expected in Montana, where a Republican challenge to Democrat Jon Tester could decide control of the Senate.
On a Saturday in late April along historic Main Street in St. Charles, Missouri, people holding makeshift clipboards made from yard signs from past elections invited locals strolling the brick sidewalks to sign a petition to get the initiative on the Missouri ballot. Nearby, diners enjoyed lunch in a hidden patio under a canopy of trees in this affluent suburb of St. Louis.
Missouri was the first state to ban abortion after Roe fell; is prohibited except in “cases of medical emergency.” The measure would add the right to abortion to the state constitution.
Larry Bax, 65, of St. Charles, said he votes Republican most of the time, but signed the ballot measure petition along with his wife, Debbie Bax, 66.
“We were never single-issue voters. Never in our lives,” he said. “This has turned us into one issue because this is so wrong.”
They won't vote for Hawley this fall, they said, but aren't sure if they will support the Democratic nominee.
Jim Seidel, 64, who lives in Wright City, 50 miles west of St. Louis, also signed the petition. He said he believes Missourians deserve a chance to vote on the issue.
“I've been a Republican all my life until recently,” Seidel said. “It's gotten really crazy.”
He plans to vote for Kunce in November if he wins the Democratic primary in August, as seems likely. Seidel previously voted for a number of Democrats, including Bill Clinton and Claire McCaskill, whom Hawley unseated as a senator six years ago.
“Most of the time,” he added, Hawley is “strongly in the wrong camp.”
For about two hours in the conservative St. Charles, KFF Health News observed that only one person refused to sign the petition. The woman told the volunteers that she and her family were opposed to abortion rights and quickly left. The Catholic Church has discouraged voters from signing. At St. Joseph's Parish in a nearby suburb, for example, a sign flashed: “Refuse to sign the reproductive health petition!”
However, organizers of the ballot measure turned in more than double the required number of signatures on May 3, and are now awaiting certification from the secretary of state.
Larry Bax's concern goes beyond abortion and the Missouri ballot measure. He worries about more government limits on reproductive care, such as IVF or birth control. “How much further can this reach be extended?” he said
Kunce is counting on enough voters who feel like Bax and Seidel to have an upset similar to what happened in 2012 for the same seat, also over abortion. McCaskill defeated Republican Todd Akin that year, largely because of his infamous response when asked about abortion: “If it's a legitimate violation, the female body has ways of trying to shut that down.”
KFF Health Newsformerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.
