Voters Defy Republicans to Overwhelmingly Protect Abortion Rights

Nearly every state that placed abortion on the ballot this year successfully enshrined the procedure in their state constitutions.

A record-breaking 10 states placed abortion access in the hands of the popular vote on Tuesday, handing citizens—not elected representatives—the ability to decide whether or not their state should meddle in an individual’s reproductive rights.

Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York all passed constitutional amendments codifying the right to abortion. Meanwhile, Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota—a small handful of states with already draconian abortion restrictions—failed to pass their respective measures to protect the medical procedure.

The majority of the initiatives sought to protect abortion access up until the point of fetal viability, which typically occurs during the second trimester between 23 and 24 weeks of pregnancy.

More than 61 percent of Arizona voters chose to codify abortion access in the state constitution. The Arizona Abortion Access Act will also enshrine the right to an abortion to protect the life and health of pregnant people.

The amendment to the Arizona Constitution offers every Arizonan the “fundamental right” to an abortion, and makes illegal any policy or program that restricts or interferes with an eligible abortion, or penalizes any person or group for aiding or assisting in an abortion within state bounds. It’s a seismic shift from the state’s current law, which restricts abortion access 15 weeks after a person’s last menstrual period.

Maryland, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada also had similar efforts on the ballot. They voted in favor of protecting the procedure up until the point of fetal viability, some by double-digit margins. Maryland had the strongest turnout of the group, with 74 percent of the vote going toward protecting an individual’s right to make their own reproductive decisions regarding abortion. Missouri passed its ballot measure by more than 51 percent, becoming the first state to overturn a total abortion ban.

Meanwhile, Montana passed its measure by 57 percent, and Nevada by 63 percent.

Colorado, which already has no gestational limit on the right to an abortion, put an amendment to a vote that sought to formally recognize the right to an abortion. Approximately 61 percent of the state voted in favor of the initiative, simultaneously stripping a conflicting constitutional amendment that prohibited the use of state funds for abortion care.

New York, which protects abortion up until the point of fetal viability under current law, put a vote to anti-discrimination efforts around access to the procedure as well as to more general reproductive health care. Sixty-two percent of voting New Yorkers sided in favor of the amendment. Advocates described it as a sideways effort that could thwart future constitutional attacks on abortion access by the state legislature, but the initiative drew criticism from voters across the board—including those in favor of it—who claimed that the proposition’s vague language failed to convey its connection to reproductive rights.

South Dakota, where abortion is completely banned, sought to prevent the state from interfering with a person’s right to choose before the second trimester. But just 40 percent of voting South Dakotans actually sided in favor of the constitutional amendment, flouting efforts that would have prohibited that state government from regulating a pregnant person’s decision to access an abortion.

The Mount Rushmore State’s ballot initiative would have protected abortion during the first trimester, or the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. It also baked in protections during emergency circumstances, including in the event that a third-trimester pregnancy poses a risk to the life of a pregnant person. The measure would have restricted the regulations capable of being imposed on second-trimester pregnancies, specifying that the government could only intervene in a way “reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.”

Nebraska had two simultaneous abortion-related measures on their ballot, one for and one against. In the early hours of Wednesday, the Associated Press called the race in favor of the ban, reporting that state denizens voted in favor of an amendment prohibiting abortion after the first three months of pregnancy—effectively affirming state law—while shooting down a proposition that would have guaranteed the right to an abortion until viability.

The trio of states that failed to pass abortion initiatives on Tuesday hint at a small shift toward an increasingly conservative outlook across the nation. In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion efforts have won in every state where the issue has appeared on the ballot. But Florida’s effort, in particular, faced dire odds: In order to be amended into the state constitution, it needed 60 percent of the vote in order to succeed.

More than six million Floridians voted in favor of Amendment 4—approximately 57.1 percent—with more than 96 percent of the expected votes in, according to a projection by NBC News. But despite the overwhelming majority of the state supporting the measure, it fell short of that 60 percent threshold.

The Amendment to Limit Government Interference With Abortion sought to protect an individual’s right to an abortion up to the point of viability, which typically occurs between 23 and 24 weeks of pregnancy. The measure also would have safeguarded the right to an abortion in the event that the procedure is deemed medically necessary in order to preserve a pregnant person’s health.

As it stands on the books, Florida’s law restricts abortion access after just six weeks. That law, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis during his campaign for president, went into effect in May. DeSantis’s decision was viewed as a strategic move that could have proved popular with some voters in swing states such as Iowa, but that bid fell apart when DeSantis announced in January that he would be withdrawing from the race—leaving Floridians holding the bag.

Florida’s law prohibits abortions well before a lot of people even realize they’re pregnant, and just one week before drugstore pregnancy tests can detect pregnancy hormones in their earliest, and least reliable, window. It has also forced some patients in need of the procedure to seek treatment outside the state—such as in North Carolina, where abortion is banned after 12 weeks—or even further afield.