Abortion Rights Face Crucial Votes in November As States Push For Reproductive Health Protections

To combat those on the opposing side, Democrats have a plan to keep reproductive healthcare front and center. For example, several states, including Montana, Nevada, Maryland, and New York, have enforced ballot measures to protect abortion rights.

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, one of the more significant topics of discussion includes abortion rights, which will make its way to the November ballot.

When Roe v. Wade fell in 2022, Republicans quickly took action. Fourteen states have a total abortion ban, with another 27 states placing bans based on gestational duration. Eight states ban abortion at or before 18 weeks gestation, and 19 states ban abortion at some point after 18 weeks.

According to the Washington Post, an unprecedented amount of abortion initiatives will sit on state ballots in the forthcoming November election, with the majority looking to protect reproductive rights. On the other side, those against abortion aim to defeat their opponents ahead of the voting by implementing “legal challenges, administrative maneuvers, and, critics say, outright intimidation.”

A University of California at Davis law professor and expert on the legal history of abortion says that conservatives are “really supercharged” in their stance to restrict abortion access.

“A lot of abortion opponents don’t think they would win a fair vote, so they’re not trying to,” said Mary Ziegler. “They’re trying to find other ways. You’re seeing a period of experimentation because anti-abortion groups haven’t found a winning recipe.”

To combat those on the opposing side, Democrats have a plan to keep reproductive health care front and center. For example, Several states, including Montana, Nevada, Maryland, and New York, have enforced ballot measures to protect abortion rights.

Democrats are counting on states like Nebraska and South Dakota to keep the ballot measures around abortion intact, thus allowing voters across the 10 states, which are keeping reproductive healthcare front and center ahead, and allowing the states to “enshrine a right to abortion or decision about reproductive health care in their constitutions.”

“The question in these next 55 days is groups on the ground making sure accurate information about what people are voting for is disseminated,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “Especially in a presidential election, mis- and disinformation can run rampant.”

Through proposals like Proposition 139 in Arizona, where the state allows abortion up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, with cases of medical emergencies as grounds for later exceptions to the law, the legislation would “create the right to obtain an abortion any time before viability, about 24 weeks.”

From any point after, however, “the State will not be able to interfere with the good-faith judgment of a treating healthcare professional that an abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant individual.”

“Our main concern now is making sure that Arizona voters know where to look for us because we will have the longest ballot in state history,” said spokeswoman Dawn Penich.”

According to the report, the ballot will be two pages long, with 13 ballot measures taking up the back of the second page.

During the first presidential debate between Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump, abortion was the topic of discussion during their heated exchange.

Trump raised eyebrows after he falsely claimed that many Democrats aim to “execute the baby” after giving birth following a nine-month term pregnancy.

Harris, on the other hand, fired a direct attack at Trump, citing his conservative majority turn of the Supreme Court as the reason for the 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade.

“You want to talk about this is what people wanted?” asked Harris during the presidential debate. “Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because healthcare providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot?”

The 2024 presidential election will take place Tuesday, Nov. 5.