For example, under one Missouri law, only physicians can perform abortions, and other health care providers such as nurse practitioners who perform the procedure face felony charges. And while not all doctors have clinical privileges allowing them to treat patients at a hospital, abortion providers must have clinical privileges at a hospital located within 30 miles and that offers obstetric or gynecological care. Not all hospitals offer this kind of care.

Some say laws like these protect women's health. Abortion-rights supporters say, and courts in some instances have found, that they aren't medically necessary and primarily serve to restrict abortion access.

The amendment sets a clear and high bar for the kinds of abortion regulations that can pass muster — or withstand a legal challenge. Any regulation must have the purpose and effect of improving or maintaining the health of the patient in way that's "consistent with widely accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine."

A lawyer who is not involved with either side of the ballot initiative said the constitutional amendment would allow for abortion and reproductive health care laws that legitimately seek to protect the health of people receiving care and ensure quality care.

Gina Bertolini, a North Carolina-based attorney with K&L Gates who advises health care providers on issues related to regulatory compliance, said the government has a "compelling interest" in protecting the safety of individuals who receive health care service.

"So there will always be the ability of the government to take steps to ensure that the care is delivered in a safe manner," she said. "Having licensed providers in licensed facilities that meet certain quality standards, those are all the kinds of things that would meet the compelling governmental interest test."

"This is much more about protecting the individual's personal decision as it relates to reproductive health care, and ensuring that there are paths for people to get the health care they need. But it doesn't remove the ability of the government of the state of Missouri to appropriately regulate those services to ensure the safety and quality of care and to protect people receiving care."

Nicole Huberfeld, a Boston University law professor specializing in health law and reproductive rights, said the constitutional amendment addresses "abortion exceptionalism."

"The idea is that states have treated abortion differently from other kinds of health care. And so what this constitutional amendment would do is make it much harder for the state to engage in special restrictions for abortion‚" Huberfeld said. "But that wouldn't mean that the doctor couldn't still be regulated like all other doctors or a nurse couldn't still be regulated like other nurses or that a physician's office or a hospital or a clinic wouldn't still be regulated in the same way as any other health care providers."

—Malpractice claims

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