Abortion rights advocates are energized after voters in Kansas rejected an effort to strip abortion protections from the state constitution earlier this month, the first statewide vote on abortion since the court’s choice in June.
Surveys show most Americans support some form of abortion access, and reproductive rights advocates are keen to take the issue directly to the voters.
“When abortion rights are on the line, people stand up and vote to protect them,” announced Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research group.
An Ipsos survey issued Aug. 10 found seven in 10 Americans, regardless of party affiliation, would back their state using a ballot measure to decide abortion rights at the state level.
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In such a hypothetical state-level ballot measure, 54 percent announced they would vote in favor of abortion legality.
In Kansas, almost 60 percent voted against the constitutional amendment, stunning anti-abortion activists who had been anticipating a win in the state former President Trump carried by almost 20 percentage points over President Biden in the 2020 election.
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Next up in November votes in Kentucky, Michigan, California, Vermont, and Montana, the most abortion-related ballot initiatives ever to take place in a single year.
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a progressive group that helps organize ballot measures, announced the growing polarization of state and federal politics is leaving voters with no other options to get their voices heard.
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“Ballot measures are not just tools in the toolbox. I think they will be an increasingly central pathway for moving these conversations forward in states and not just in the abstract … but making policy,” Hall announced.
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Ballot measures are expensive and challenging undertakings, and Hall announced they are normally a tool of last resort.
Yet now, she stated, there is a significant disconnect between extreme politicians and the voters.
“That opens up a space for ballot measures to be not just an option, but often the only option, where there’s no way to get middle-ground common sense policies through the usual mechanisms of lawmaking,” Hall stated.
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Voters in Kentucky will vote on a measure that’s the most similar to Kansas. Vermont, California, and Michigan are moving to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, while Montana would mandate medical care for children “born alive” after an abortion.
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