COLUMBIA, Missouri (AP) — Both sides of the debate over enshrining abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution have filed last-minute lawsuits to influence how and whether the proposal goes before voters.

Missouri banned nearly all abortions immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In response, a campaign to restore abortion access in the state is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee a right to abortion.

The courts have until Sept. 10 to make changes to the November ballots, said State Department spokeswoman JoDonn Chaney.

Two Republican state lawmakers and a prominent anti-abortion activist filed suit last week to stop the bill in light of the looming deadline.

Mary Catherine Martin, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, which represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement that Ashcroft’s office should never have put the amendment on the November ballot. She said the bill does not inform voters of the range of abortion regulations and laws that would be repealed if the amendment is passed.

“It is a scorched earth campaign that is destroying our state laws and removing important protections for vulnerable women and children, innocent unborn children, parents and any taxpayer who does not want their money spent on abortion and other extreme choices that this amendment defines as ‘welfare,'” Martin said.

No hearings have been scheduled in this case yet.

The Abortion Rights Campaign has also sued Ashcroft over the way his office described the measure.

“A yes vote would enshrine in the Missouri Constitution the right to abortion at any time during pregnancy,” the Secretary of State’s office said in the ballot language. “It would also prohibit any regulation of abortion, including regulations protecting women who obtain abortions, and prohibit any civil or criminal prosecution of anyone who performs an abortion and injures or kills the pregnant woman.”

A lawsuit seeking to reword this language argues that the measure would allow lawmakers to regulate abortions even after the fetus is viable and would allow lawsuits for medical malpractice and wrongful death.

Ashcroft’s language was “intentionally contentious and is likely to induce prejudice against the proposed measure,” the lawyers wrote in the petition.

Chaney said the Secretary of State’s office stands by the current description of the measure and that “the court can review that information, as often happens.”

This is not the first time Ashcroft has clashed with the abortion rights movement. Last year, Missouri courts rejected a summary of the vote on the amendment written by Ashcroft, saying his description was politically partisan.

The lawsuit filed by the Abortion Rights Campaign is scheduled to go to court on September 4.

The Missouri amendment is part of a nationwide initiative to give voters a say in the abortion issue since the overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

Measures to protect access to the vote have already been introduced this year in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota and Missouri.

Legal battles have erupted across the country over whether voters should be allowed to decide these issues — and over the exact language on ballots and accompanying materials. Earlier this week, Arkansas’ highest court upheld the decision not to put an abortion rights ballot initiative on the state’s November ballot, agreeing with election officials that the group behind the initiative had failed to file proper records about the signature gatherers it had hired.

In all seven states where abortion issues have been on the ballot since 2022, voters have sided with abortion rights advocates.