Nine States to Have Pro-Choice Abortion Measures on November Ballot
(Worthy News) – Following the 2022 decision by the US Supreme Court to revoke the federal right to abortion up to viability and return the issue to individual states to decide, at least nine states will have pro-choice abortion measures on their November 2024 ballot, Forbes reports. The nine states with confirmed ballot measures are: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Arizona voters will consider Proposition 139, which would create a “fundamental right to abortion” in the state Constitution. The measure would prohibit the state from banning abortion up to fetal viability and would allow abortion thereafter if it were necessary “to protect the life or health” of the woman, Forbes reports. Colorado will have a Right to Abortion proposal that would make abortion a state constitutional right, Forbes reports. In Florida, Amendment 4 would amend the state’s Constitution to ensure no law “shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health.” Parents and guardians must still be notified if minors seek an abortion.
Maryland’s Right to Reproductive Freedom measure would amend the state Constitution to ensure “the right to reproductive freedom,” including the right to “prevent, continue or end one’s own pregnancy,” Forbes reports. Missouri’s Right to Reproductive Freedom measure would amend the state Constitution to ensure the state cannot restrict the “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” The state may ban abortion after the point of fetal viability, except for medical emergencies, Forbes reports. In Montana, Constitutional Initiative No. 128 would amend the state Constitution to “expressly provide a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion” up to viability and after if medically necessary.
Nevada’s Right to Abortion Initiative would amend the state Constitution to guarantee the “fundamental right to abortion performed or administered by a qualified health care practitioner until fetal viability, or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient,” Forbes reports. In New York, the Equal Protection of Law amendment would add protections from discrimination based on “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
In South Dakota, Amendment G would allow unrestricted access to abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, abortion in the second trimester if the request “is reasonably related to the physical health” of the woman, and abortion in the third trimester if a doctor considers it necessary to save the woman’s life or protect her health.