(LifeSiteNews) — Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, Americans will be voting on 11 abortion-related ballot measures this November, the results of which could tip the already precarious standing of the pro-life cause in either direction.
“[A]ctivists across the country have been mobilizing for more than a year to place” the measures on the ballot, writes Catholic News Agency’s Jonah McKeown, who detailed the 11 measures in 10 states confirmed for the ballot as of August 27. “Several of the proposals in front of voters threaten current pro-life protections. At the same time, in other states that do little to protect unborn babies, the proposed measures would make abortion even more widely accessible.”
Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Nevada, and South Dakota will all vote on proposals to weaken or eliminate state pro-life laws, while Nebraska also has an amendment that would ban late-term abortion competing with the pro-abortion amendment.
Arizona
The amendment backed by the pro-abortion coalition “Arizona for Abortion Access” would establish 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 be required to allow abortion in cases where abortion, “in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional [i.e., an abortionist], is necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual,” whereas the language gives abortionists the discretion to justify any abortion, rendering any future pro-life laws effectively meaningless.
Direct abortion is always gravely immoral and never medically necessary, as both pro-life doctors and former abortionists affirm.
READ: Think unborn babies are just ‘clumps of cells’? These videos will make you think again
Colorado
The amendment from “Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom” would declare simply, “The right [sic] to abortion is hereby recognized. Government shall not deny, impede, or discriminate against the exercise of that right [sic], including prohibiting health insurance coverage for abortion”; effectively insulating Colorado’s current status quo from future legislative changes.
It would also delete 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.”
Florida
Amendment 4, the so-called “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” states that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” If enacted, it would require abortion to be allowed for any reason before fetal “viability” and render post-“viability” bans effectively meaningless by exempting any abortion that an abortionist claims is for “health” reasons. If successful, it would overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
The amendment ostensibly says that it “does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.” But Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has warned that “there’s a difference between consent and notification. Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a condition precedent. They did that because they know going after parents’ rights is a vulnerability.”
Amendment 4 has received more national attention than most, since pro-lifers hope that DeSantis’s vocal work against it, Florida’s million-voter Republican advantage, and the state’s 60% threshold will be enough to defeat it and reverse the abortion lobby’s two-year winning streak with similar amendments. Former President Donald Trump, who has been distancing himself from the pro-life cause throughout his latest election bid, came out against Amendment 4 last week after having briefly seemed to imply that he would vote for it.
READ: Trump clarifies he will vote ‘no’ on Florida’s radical pro-abortion amendment
Maryland
The so-called “Right to Reproductive Freedom” Amendment would write into the state constitution that “every person, as a central component of an individual’s rights to liberty and equality, has the fundamental right [sic] 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 [sic] unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
Abortion is currently legal until viability in Maryland, with exceptions for maternal life and “health” or “fetal anomaly.” The amendment would render abortion effectively unlimited. Further, Health Not Harm chair Deborah Brocato warns 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.”
Missouri
Amendment 3, which state officials and the Thomas More Society are currently challenging, would establish a so-called “right to abortion at any time of a pregnancy in the Missouri Constitution. Additionally, it will prohibit any regulation of abortion, including regulations designed to protect women undergoing abortions and prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone who performs an abortion and hurts or kills the pregnant women,” according to the state’s official summary. It would technically allow regulation after fetal viability, albeit with loopholes pro-lifers have warned would render such regulations toothless.
Thomas More Society has said that Amendment 3’s wording is so vague that it would also be used to create a “right” to
“gender transition” procedures.
Montana
Montana’s “Right to Abortion Initiative” would create a so-called “right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right [sic] to abortion. This right [sic] 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 deemed “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 [an abortionist], is medically indicated to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient,” it adds, effectively leaving it up to an abortionist to decide if an abortion is “medically indicated,” though abortion is never needed to protect a woman’s life or health.
READ: Abortionist turned pro-life doctor shares story of his dramatic reversion to the Christian faith
Nebraska
A pro-abortion coalition called “Protect Our Rights” is leading the charge for a so-called “Right to Abortion Initiative,” which would “amend the Nebraska Constitution to provide all persons the fundamental right [sic] to abortion without interference from the state or its political subdivisions until fetal viability,” with “health” exceptions after “viability” that could be interpreted broadly enough to authorize almost any abortion. The Nebraska Catholic Conference warns that its language also threatens parental involvement requirements for underage abortions, as well any health and safety regulations on the abortion industry as “interference.”
A second proposal, dubbed the “Nebraska Prohibit Abortions After the First Trimester Amendment,” would write into the Nebraska Constitution a prohibition on abortion in the second and third trimesters except for “medical emergency or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest,” while not addressing early-term abortions. The Nebraska Catholic Conference frames that omission as “leav[ing] protections for preborn babies in the 1st trimester and in cases of rape, incest, or medical emergency to the Nebraska Legislature,” which it says can be supported “as an incremental step toward full protection of all human life from abortion, and not as a permanent compromise.”
Due to the moderation of that amendment, some pro-lifers tried unsuccessfully to get a third measure on the ballot, which would have stated “that a “preborn child at every stage of development is a person. Whenever under Nebraska law the term ‘person’ is used or implied, it shall include such a child.” Meanwhile, Thomas More is challenging Nebraska’s pro-abortion amendment, as well, and the Nebraska Supreme Court will hear the case.
New York
Abortion is already broadly legal in the left-wing Empire State, but the so-called “Equal Protection of Law Amendment” would insulate abortion-on-demand and more from future legislative reconsideration by adding “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy” to the New York Constitution’s equal protection language.
“Nothing in this section shall invalidate or prevent the adoption of any law, regulation, program, or practice that is designed to prevent or dismantle discrimination on the basis of a characteristic listed in this section, nor shall any characteristic listed in this section be interpreted to interfere with, limit, or deny the civil rights of any person based upon any other characteristic identified in this section,” it adds.
Nevada
Backed by a group called “Nevadans for Reproductive Rights,” 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 deemed “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.
South Dakota
Constitutional Amendment G, the “Right to Abortion Initiative,” would add to the state constitution language barring any regulation of abortion in the first trimester, allowing government in the second trimester to “regulate the pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman,” and in the third trimester allow abortion to be prohibited “except when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life and health of the pregnant woman.”
It would invalidate South Dakota’s current pro-life trigger law, which went into effect following the overturning of Roe. That law prohibits abortion throughout pregnancy, with an exception for when medical opinion deems it “necessary” to save the mother’s life due to a physical condition.
READ: South Dakota voters to decide on radical abortion amendment that would nullify pro-life law
2024 and beyond
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 creating “rights” to abortion immune from future legislation.
Pro-lifers have either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Vermont, 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.
Should most of the amendments succeed, particularly in red states, those advocating a more socially moderate GOP will take it as vindication, further marginalizing pro-life legislative efforts. If, however, pro-life activists can successfully thwart at least some of them, it will break the abortion lobby’s winning streak and narrative of inevitability.