The Missouri Supreme Court Tuesday reinstated the state’s ban on most abortions, ruling that a judge’s earlier orders to the contrary were in error.

Voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment in November putting abortion rights in the state constitution. But at Planned Parenthood’s request in a lawsuit, a Kansas City judge quickly followed that with rulings in December and February temporarily striking down the state’s abortion ban.

Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang also ruled that the state’s abortion clinic licensing requirements are discriminatory.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the high court to intervene, warning that Zhang’s orders had left women “no guarantee of health and safety because abortion facilities are functionally unregulated under state law in Missouri.”

The state Supreme Court’s two-page order Tuesday says Zhang applied the incorrect standard in issuing injunctions against a duly-enacted state law and, in effect, had too easily enjoined the state’s abortion restrictions.

Zhang’s rulings apparently relied on an obsolete standard the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has since changed.

Specifically, the Supreme Court noted that in a case involving the blocking of a law, a judge must make a “threshold finding” that the party seeking the injunction is “likely to prevail” on the merits of the case in the end.

Zhang will have another chance to make such a finding in order to revive her orders blocking the state’s abortion ban and regulations.

In any event, Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit is headed for January 2026 trial.