In nearly a dozen states, voters this fall will have a chance to protect abortion rights and advance equality for women.
This article appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms., which hits newsstands Sept. 24. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.
In overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court declared, “The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” But with rampant gerrymandering—greenlit by the Supreme Court—these “elected representatives” often do not fairly represent the people. This makes ballot initiatives a critically important avenue for ensuring women’s rights in states with conservative legislatures.
Almost two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, yet 21 state legislatures have now banned abortion earlier in pregnancy than Roe allowed. Fourteen state legislatures have banned abortion altogether, and another three have enacted six-week bans.
Majorities (57 percent) of residents in Republican-controlled states and nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of residents in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Since June 2022, when the Supreme Court made its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, seven states have voted on abortion-related ballot measures. Voters chose to protect abortion rights in all seven states.
- In August 2022, voters in Kansas rejected an antiabortion measure by 59 to 41.
- Then, in November 2022, voters overwhelmingly supported constitutional amendments to guarantee abortion rights in California (67 to 33), Michigan (57 to 43) and Vermont (77 to 23), while voters rejected antiabortion ballot referenda in Kentucky (52 to 48) and Montana (53 to 47).
- In November 2023, Ohioans voted 57 to 43 in favor of a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.
With a 100-percent success rate so far, reproductive rights activists are pushing for ballot measures in another 11 states this fall, with the added hope of turning out voters in battleground states like Arizona and Nevada. Abortion and women’s rights combined remains a top issue for women voters—especially young women—ranking above inflation and/or rising prices.
Ten states have approved abortion-related ballot measures for the fall elections, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota—the highest number for a single year on record. Ballot measures for and against abortion rights will be on the ballot in Nebraska.
In Arkansas, advocates had collected enough to get an abortion-rights measure on the ballot. It took an order from the state Supreme Court to force the secretary of state to count the signatures after the attorney general attempted to disqualify the ballot measure by claiming organizers did not submit required paperwork with the signatures. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court blocked an abortion rights ballot measure in that state, which would have protected abortion access only until 18 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomaly.
Four states with certified ballot measures essentially ban abortion. Missouri and South Dakota have total bans. Florida bans the procedure at six weeks and Arizona at 15 weeks with no exceptions for rape or incest.
All the ballot measures amend state constitutions to prohibit laws or policies that restrict abortion before fetal viability (around 24 weeks of pregnancy) except for the Arkansas measure, which would have protected abortion access until the 18th week of pregnancy, after which there are exceptions for rape, incest and fatal fetal anomaly, and measures in New York, Colorado and Maryland, which offer broader protections. All the measures provide for life and health exceptions for abortions later in pregnancy (except in New York, Colorado and Maryland, where those protections aren’t necessary)—although some define health narrowly, excluding mention of mental health.
Several state measures contain language emphasizing freedom and autonomy, such as amendments protecting “autonomous decision-making” in Arizona and “reproductive healthcare and autonomy” in New York.
Floridians Protecting Freedom declares: “All Floridians deserve the freedom to make personal medical decisions, free of government intrusion.”
In Nebraska, the Protect Our Rights campaign declares, “Most Nebraskans agree that the government should not be involved in personal decisions that are better left to patients, their faith and their healthcare providers.”
There have been counterefforts in several states to put antiabortion measures on the ballot, including in Nebraska. The measure placed on the Nebraska ballot by the Protect Our Rights campaign would amend the Nebraska Constitution to provide all women the fundamental right to abortion without government interference until fetal viability. The antiabortion measure would make permanent the state’s 12-week abortion ban.
Rather than trying to convince voters of the merits of the issue, abortion opponents have spread disinformation and engaged in intimidation to defeat these amendments.
- In South Dakota, for example, antiabortion advocates pretending to work for the secretary of state’s office called people who had signed an abortion-rights petition and pressured them to remove their signatures
- In Missouri, antiabortion groups, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, texted and phoned voters warning them not to sign anything, claiming “out-of-state groups are attempting to collect your sensitive data.”
- In Arkansas and Montana, antiabortion extremists have harassed and intimidated abortion-rights petitioners.
- In Nebraska, abortion opponents confused voters by claiming their 12-week abortion ban was “pro-choice.”
- Antiabortion advocates in Florida and Missouri inaccurately claim abortion-rights ballot measures would require taxpayer-funded abortion and cost their states millions or billions of dollars.
Four states that already protect abortion rights by statute have ballot measures to enshrine these rights in their state constitutions, including Colorado, Maryland, Nevada and New York.
“States like ours, which have statutory protections—which are awesome—need to expand those protections by putting covenant protections in our state constitution,” said Caroline Mello Roberson, director of the Nevada campaign for Reproductive Freedom for All.
For the constitutional amendment to take effect in Nevada, voters will have to approve it this November and again in 2026. Colorado’s Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative would not only provide a constitutional right to abortion in the state constitution but also would allow the use of public funds for abortion.
“A right isn’t a right if you can’t exercise it because you can’t afford it,” noted Karen Middleton, president of Cobalt and cochair of Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom.
The Missouri amendment would protect a broad range of reproductive rights, including “the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive healthcare, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care and respectful birthing conditions.”
The Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment would amend the Maryland Constitution to establish a right to reproductive freedom, defined to include “decisions to prevent, continue or end one’s own pregnancy.” Advocates in Maryland emphasize how the state could benefit from the amendment.
“Access to safe, legal and accessible abortion and reproductive healthcare is not only a moral imperative, but it also has enormous social, economic and health benefits to individuals, families and communities,” said Sharon Blugis, interim executive director of Pro-Choice Maryland.
The most expansive ballot initiative is New York’s Equal Protection of Law Amendment, which adds language to the New York Bill of Rights guaranteeing sex equality as well as providing that people cannot be denied rights based on “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
If the outcomes of ballot initiatives over the past two years are a sign, all 11 of these measures will succeed and significantly expand women’s rights in a number of key states this November.
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