Voters in Montana approved a ballot amendment that enshrines a right to abortion in the State Constitution, according to The Associated Press.
Montana was one of 10 states with similar measures on the ballot this year, as abortion rights groups looked to capitalize on the increasing popular support for abortion in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Abortion has remained legal in Montana because of a 1999 State Supreme Court decision that said the right to privacy in the State Constitution protected the right of women to choose an abortion before viability, the point in pregnancy when the fetus can survive outside the uterus.
Abortion rights activists said the State Constitution needed to be amended to include an explicit right to abortion to prevent future members of the court, who are elected, from reversing that decision. The state’s Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, and the Republican-controlled Legislature have repeatedly tried to ban or restrict abortion.
Supporters of the measure had submitted more than 117,000 signatures, nearly double the number needed to place the measure on the ballot, and the most submitted for a ballot measure in Montana’s history.
Republicans and national groups opposed to abortion campaigned hard to try to stop the measure from appearing on the ballot, and from passing.
The Montana amendment establishes an express right “to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy,” including abortion.
It prohibits the government from “denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability.” After viability, the state may restrict or ban abortion, except if the treating health care professional determines it is necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s “life or health.”
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