DENVER — Pro-choice advocates are once again wielding ballot measures to challenge strong pro-life laws in states like Florida and Missouri, but the movement is also seeking to pick off relatively modest restrictions in states where abortion is readily accessible.
Take Colorado. Abortions are allowed in the Centennial State through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, with two caveats: Taxpayer funding for abortion is prohibited, and parental notification for minors is required.
Both limitations are on the chopping block with Amendment 79, which would explicitly allow public funding and bar any law “impeding” abortion access, meaning that parental notification probably wouldn’t survive court scrutiny, said Scott Shamblin, executive director of Colorado Right to Life.
“It’s essentially going to make Colorado a permanent abortion hot spot,” said Mr. Shamblin, who heads the Vote No on 79 campaign.
Colorado is one of 10 states where voters on Nov. 5 will decide on proposed constitutional amendments billed as efforts to save reproductive rights from restrictive bans, even though in most of those states, abortion is already available in the first trimester and beyond.
That includes Maryland, where abortion is legal through all 40 weeks of pregnancy. In Nevada, New York and Montana, procedures are allowed through fetal viability, or about 24 weeks’ gestation, while Arizona permits abortions until 15 weeks’ gestation and afterward under certain exceptions.
In Nebraska, voters have a choice between competing measures: Amendment 434, which would hold the line on the state’s current 12-week gestational limit, and Amendment 439, which would allow abortion until fetal viability and afterward to protect the life and health of the mother.
Picking abortion ballot fights in abortion-friendly blue states like Colorado, Maryland and New York could be seen as overkill, but pro-choice advocates argue that the amendments are needed to act as insurance policies against future legislatures that may not be as amenable to reproductive rights.
“Maryland currently lacks constitutional protections that guarantee everyone’s right to reproductive freedom and abortion access,” said the Yes on Question 1 campaign. “With reproductive rights under attack, we must amend our state constitution to ensure politicians can never undermine our rights in the future.”
As Jessica Grennan, director of the Colorado Yes on 79 campaign, put it, the amendment is needed to ensure that “abortion care remains safe from the swipe of a politician’s pen.”
Pro-life advocates contend that the attack on reasonable limitations proves their point: that the goal isn’t to protect health care access, but to enshrine into law unfettered abortion throughout pregnancy.
“The abortion lobby wants nothing less than limitless abortion on demand, paid for by taxpayers,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “Pro-abortion ballot measures show they are never satisfied with any limits, no matter how reasonable.”
Most of the proposed amendments do have a limit: They draw the line at fetal viability, when a baby can survive outside the womb. After viability, however, procedures would still be available under a host of exceptions, including to protect the life or health of the mother, which includes mental health.
Pro-life groups argue that the viability restriction is no restriction at all.
“Though some of the measures include the word ‘viability,’ the broad exceptions in the measures ultimately allow elective abortion in all nine months,” said SBA spokeswoman Emily Erin Davis. “Girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own will be able to obtain an abortion without a parent ever knowing.”
Codifying Roe
The election comes with the pro-life movement seeking to reverse its fortunes after going 0 for 7 in ballot battles following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent abortion decision-making back to the states.
It won’t be easy. Not only are the pro-abortion campaigns awash in cash — the Colorado Yes on 79 camp enjoys a fundraising advantage of 40 to 1 — but also the anti-abortion side is on defense in 10 of the 11 contests, the exception being Nebraska’s Amendment 434.
The stakes are highest in Florida and Missouri, where pro-life laws implemented after the fall of Roe are in danger of being toppled by sweeping abortion-rights amendments.
In Florida, Amendment 4 would allow abortion until fetal viability and then to protect the patient’s health “as determined by the patient’s health care provider,” someone who doesn’t have to be a doctor and could be an abortion provider.
The amendment would eliminate the state’s heartbeat law, which bars most abortions after six weeks’ gestation with several exceptions, including to protect the woman’s health.
In Missouri, Amendment 3 would eradicate one of the nation’s toughest abortion laws, one that bans abortions except to protect the woman’s life or physical health, by adding the “right to reproductive freedom” to the state Constitution.
Passing the Florida measure will be the tougher task, given that the state requires a 60% vote for constitutional amendments. In Missouri, the threshold is 50%.
Then there’s South Dakota’s Amendment G, a unique measure that sets up a trimester framework mirroring that of Roe v. Wade.
The proposal would prohibit restrictions on abortions in the first trimester, allow the state to enact some limits in the second trimester, and bar abortion in the third trimester, with life-and-health-of-the-mother exceptions.
Despite the hurdles in blue-state Colorado, Mr. Shamblin said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about defeating Amendment 79, which requires a 55% vote to pass.
“According to our polling, this fails if the voters know the truth, the truth being that it creates a right to late-term, nine-month abortions, that it prohibits parental notification, and that it forces tax dollars to pay for abortions,” he said. “When people know those three things, this amendment fails, so it’s up to us to get the word out.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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