A Missouri judge on Friday ruled that an abortion-rights campaign did not meet legal requirements to qualify for the November ballot, potentially thwarting a yearslong effort to undo the state's near-total abortion ban.

A Missouri judge says an abortion rights campaign didn't meet legal requirements to qualify for the November ballot.

The judge said he wouldn’t order the measure removed from the ballot until Tuesday, the deadline for printing the ballots, to allow abortion rights groups to appeal.

A Missouri judge on Friday ruled against an abortion rights measure set for the November ballot, a decision that throws the proposal’s fate into uncertainty.

But abortion rights groups hope an appeals court will reverse the ruling before the Tuesday deadline to print the state ballots.

The fate of a proposal to overturn Missouri’s near-total abortion ban could be in jeopardy. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled Friday that Amendment 3 is “in blatant violation” of requirements that determine if an initiative can be placed on the November general election ballot.

A Missouri judge on Friday ruled that an abortion-rights campaign did not meet legal requirements to qualify for the November ballot.

A Missouri judge faces a Tuesday deadline to decide whether to take the rare step of pulling an abortion-rights amendment off the state's November ballot. Lawyers for abortion opponents during a Friday bench trial asked Cole Count Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh to strip the measure from the ballot.