Voters in seven states approved ballot amendments establishing a right to abortion in their state constitutions, continuing a broad repudiation of the abortion bans enacted since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Missouri, which was the first state to officially enact an abortion ban after Roe was overturned in 2022, became the first state where voters ended a ban at the ballot box, with 52 percent approving the measure. A similar amendment passed by 57 percent in Montana, another Republican-controlled state. In two battleground states, Nevada and Arizona, measures to enshrine a right to abortion passed, with more than 60 percent of the vote for each.
But the abortion rights movement also hit its limits, stalling in what had been a winning streak on ballot measures post-Roe, as voters in three Republican-controlled states, Florida, South Dakota and Nebraska, rejected amendments that would have established a constitutional right to abortion.
Even as they hailed their victories, abortion rights supporters warned that the second Trump administration could use federal power to essentially invalidate the new state-level protections.
President-elect Donald J. Trump boasted on the campaign trail of having overturned Roe — he appointed the three justices who helped swing the court majority. And anti-abortion activists have laid plans for a second Trump administration to use existing federal statutes to ban abortion pills, and to use the 14th Amendment to establish fetal personhood, which would effectively criminalize abortion at any stage of pregnancy. A Republican-controlled Congress could look to pass a federal abortion ban.
Opponents of abortion rights looked at the results and saw victory. “Supported by the abortion industry and its allies, Harris and Walz campaigned with fanatical fervor on abortion — and the voters rejected them,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.
And Democrats who hoped that support for ballot measures would also lift their candidates to victory were largely disappointed.
The groups backing the winning measures, however, said the victories even in states that went solidly for Mr. Trump were a clear signal that most Americans, regardless of party, age or gender, do not want the government restricting abortion.
“Missourians can’t agree on baseball, barbecue or how to pronounce our state’s name, but we came together today in support of this fundamental truth: Everyone must be free to make their own health care decisions,” Emily Wales, the president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said late Tuesday. “Anti-abortion politicians masterminded this ban, sought to silence the people’s voice and worked to undermine the mandate of Missourians to restore access to abortion care. But we overcame every obstacle they threw in our path to arrive here today.”
Abortion rights groups had started the year knowing they had an uphill challenge. They had prevailed in all seven ballot measures in the two years after the fall of Roe, the 1973 decision that established a right to abortion in the federal Constitution. It protected a right to abortion in states as different as Kansas and California.
This year, they sponsored abortion measures in 10 states — more than in any previous year — including in five Republican-controlled states.
Florida alone posed a particularly tough challenge: While a majority of residents, 57 percent, voted in favor of the ballot amendment, it needed 60 percent to pass — a higher threshold than any other abortion measure has faced. Abortion rights groups had never won more than 59 percent in any red state, and Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, spent considerable political influence and state resources to defeat the ballot amendment there.
In South Dakota, which also had a measure trying to overturn a ban that is one of the nation’s strictest, sponsors of the amendment were outspent by local and national anti-abortion groups, and lost, with 40 percent of the vote. Planned Parenthood and other groups that supported similar amendments elsewhere declined to support South Dakota’s measure because they said it did not go far enough to protect the right to abortion, and would allow the Legislature to pass so many restrictions that abortion would effectively remain inaccessible in the state.
Nebraska was the only state with competing ballot measures on abortion. An amendment sponsored by anti-abortion groups that bans abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy won with 55 percent. Those groups had tried and failed to collect enough signatures to sponsor a measure banning abortion starting at conception, but sought to block an amendment sponsored by abortion rights groups that would have established a right to abortion until fetal viability, the point when the fetus can survive outside the uterus, generally around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
“They launched and spent over $13 million on an aggressive misinformation campaign with one goal: to confuse voters into giving up their reproductive rights,” said Allie Berry, the campaign manager for the viability measure, which earned 49 percent.
One surprisingly large victory was in New York, where abortion rights activists had worried that confusing language might doom the amendment they sponsored. The measure, which passed with 62 percent of the vote, did not include the word “abortion”; instead it broadened bias protections to include a prohibition on discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes.”
Voters in two other Democratic-controlled states, Colorado and Maryland, also enshrined a right to abortion in their state constitutions. The measure in Colorado passed with 61 percent of the vote, and the one in Maryland was approved with 74 percent.
In Nevada, voters approved the measure to protect abortion rights with 63 percent. But state law requires voters to approve ballot amendments twice, so the measure will face another vote in 2026. Abortion has remained broadly legal in the state since the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
The amendments that won in seven states hint at a consensus that has emerged on abortion rights. Like those that passed Michigan and Ohio in 2022 and 2023, the measures proposed this year generally established a right to abortion up until fetal viability. States can restrict abortion after that point, with some exceptions, especially for the health of the pregnant woman. This essentially restores the framework established in Roe.
But even in states that now establish a constitutional right to abortion, groups that oppose abortion rights made clear they would continue pressing for more restrictions.
“Life supporters will not sit back and watch as Big Abortion works to dismantle all the health and safety protections put in place to protect women and babies,” said Stephanie Bell, a spokeswoman for Missouri Stands with Women, the coalition that opposed the amendment there. “We will continue to fight and ultimately be victorious against the forces who see no value in life.”
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