(LifeSiteNews) — Pro-lifers defeated pro-abortion ballot initiatives in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota on Tuesday, breaking the abortion lobby’s two-year winning streak, but amendments to embed abortion “rights” in state constitutions prevailed in seven other states, including Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, and Nevada.
Arizona voted 61.71 percent with 61 percent of votes counted to enact an amendment backed by the pro-abortion coalition “Arizona for Abortion Access,” establishing a so-called “fundamental right to abortion that the state of Arizona may not interfere with before the point of fetal viability (defined as the point of pregnancy when there is significant chance of the survival of the fetus outside of the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures) unless justified by a compelling state interest (defined as a law or regulation enacted for the limited purpose of improving or maintaining the health of the individual seeking abortion care [sic] that does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision making).”
After viability, abortion bans would still need to allow abortion in cases where abortion, “in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional [i.e., abortionist], is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual,” despite the fact that abortion is never medically necessary, as both pro-life doctors and former abortionists affirm. The language gives abortionists the discretion to justify any abortion, rendering any future pro-life laws effectively meaningless.
Abortion has been legal in Arizona up to 15 weeks for any reason and forbidden afterward only for “medical emergencies.” In addition to weakening that standard, the amendment prevents a future legislature from restoring the 1864 near-total abortion ban it repealed in May.
Colorado’s amendment from “Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom” declares simply, the so-called “right to abortion is hereby recognized. Government shall not deny, impede, or discriminate against the exercise of that [so-called] right, including prohibiting health insurance coverage for abortion”; effectively insulating Colorado’s current status quo – in which legal abortion is effectively unlimited – from future legislative changes. It also deleted the state constitution’s existing language banning taxpayer dollars from being used to “pay or otherwise reimburse, either directly or indirectly, any person, agency or facility for the performance of any induced abortion.”
Coloradans voted to approve the amendment with 61.48 percent in favor.
Maryland residents, meanwhile, voted 74.11 percent in favor of their so-called “Right to Reproductive Freedom” Amendment, which writes into the state constitution that “every person, as a central component of an individual’s rights to liberty and equality, has the [so-called] fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one’s own pregnancy. The state may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
Abortion was already legal up to birth in Maryland for any reason. The amendment will render abortion effectively unlimited. Further, Health Not Harm chair Deborah Brocato warned that “reproductive freedom” is not clearly defined in state law or the amendment: “The only clue we have in the amendment itself is that it says ‘reproductive freedom is not limited to…’ and then the language that describes things related to pregnancy. By the amendment itself, we know it is meant to go beyond things having to do with pregnancy.”
In Montana, 57 percent of voters approved the “Right to Abortion Initiative,” which proposes a “right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the [so-called] right to abortion,” which it says “shall not be denied or burdened unless justified by a compelling government interest achieved by the least restrictive means,” clarifying that such an interest is only “compelling” if it “clearly and convincingly addresses a medically acknowledged, bona fide health risk to a pregnant patient and does not infringe on the patient’s autonomous decision making.”
“The government may regulate the provision of abortion care [sic] after fetal viability provided that in no circumstance shall the government deny or burden access to an abortion that, in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional [i.e., abortionist], is medically indicated to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient,” it adds, effectively leaving it up to an abortionist to deem that an abortion is allegedly “medically indicated.”
The amendment will most likely be interpreted as overturning several state pro-life laws, including a ban on second-trimester “dismemberment” procedures and a ban on most abortions after 24 weeks.
In Nevada, the so-called “Reproductive Freedom Amendment” would establish a state-level “constitutional right” to “make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including, without limitation, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, vasectomy, tubal ligation, abortion, abortion care [sic], management of a miscarriage and infertility care.”
It would allow abortion to be “regulate[d]” after fetal viability, albeit with the exception of any abortion claimed to be “necessary” for the mother’s “life or physical or mental health,” a loophole that would render any ban effectively meaningless. It would also establish that the state could not “penalize, prosecute or otherwise take adverse action” against individuals for “actual, potential, perceived or alleged outcome of the pregnancy of the individual, including, without limitation, a miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion,” which could be construed as protecting infanticide.
The amendment, which insulates and expands Nevada’s status quo of allowing abortion up to 24 weeks, passed with 63.33 percent of the vote. Under state rules, however, it must pass another referendum in 2026 before it can be added to the constitution.
As LifeSiteNews has covered, the abortion lobby also passed similar amendments in Missouri and New York on Tuesday.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the abortion lobby has had great success using false claims that pro-life laws are dangerous to stoke fear about the issue among the general public, most visibly in the area of state constitutional amendments enshrining “rights” to abortion immune from future legislation.
In previous years, pro-lifers either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont, Kansas, and Ohio, prompting much conversation among pro-lifers about the need to develop new strategies to protect life at the ballot box, as well as a debate among Republicans over the political ramifications of continuing to take a clear pro-life position.
As with those years, the abortion lobby once again dramatically outspent pro-lifers, although their spending advantage was not enough to prevail in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. In addition, Democrats’ heavy emphasis on stoking fears about pro-life laws to drive pro-abortion turnout failed to prevent Republicans from retaking the White House, the Senate, and, while not yet officially called, possibly even the House of Representatives.