There Are More Abortion Rights Ballot Measures Than Ever Before
HuffPost
Eleven abortion referendums will be in front of voters in 10 states this Election Day.
Eleven abortion referendums will be in front of voters in 10 states this Election Day — the largest number of pro-choice amendments the country has ever seen during a single election cycle.
From red states like Missouri and South Dakota to blue states like New York, the abortion rights ballot measures could have a monumental impact on access throughout the country. Over 20 states have enacted abortion bans since the Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protections in 2022. Citizen-led initiatives, like most of this year’s abortion rights measures, have become the response to many of the near-total abortion bans passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures.
“This is a public health crisis that we have right now,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, who has worked with campaigns in all 10 states where an abortion rights amendment is in play. “The citizens, in the absence of their local elected officials, are addressing it. They’re taking power into their own hands.”
In 2022, there were six ballot measures addressing abortion, which at the time was the most in a single year. Voters protected abortion care in every state it was on the ballot during that election cycle, including in deeply Republican states like Kentucky. Ohio, a state with a long and extreme anti-abortion history, also voted to codify abortion rights into its state constitution just last year.
This year’s ballot measures range in their approaches to and levels of abortion protections. Nebraska will have two competing abortion measures, one to restrict access and one to expand. Maryland, New York and Colorado are all seeking to codify abortion protections throughout pregnancy — exceptions to the rest of the measures, which would primarily enshrine access until viability or around 24 weeks. Colorado’s Amendment 79 would also allow the use of public funds for abortion care. Missouri’s Amendment 3 would restore abortion access until viability and protect women from being prosecuted for pregnancy outcomes like miscarriage and stillbirth — a particularly progressive measure in a notoriously anti-abortion state.
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