Amid the horrors of Tuesday's election, there was one bright spot: Seven states passed ballot measures to expand or enshrine the right to an abortion: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York.
Abortion-rights ballot measures failed in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota—the first such measures to fail at the state level since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion.
Florida's abortion-rights ballot measure—which would have nixed the state’s draconian six-week ban and protected the right to the procedure before fetal viability—got 57%, just shy of the 60% supermajority that it needed. This comes at the end of a long campaign from state Republicans against the measure.
And in Nebraska, a slim majority of voters voted to ban abortion after the first trimester—generally considered to be the end of the 12th week of pregnancy—except for cases of rape, incest, or in medical emergencies. A rights-restoring measure failed, securing just 49% of the vote. However, because there were conflicting measures on the ballot, the abortion-rights initiative would have also needed to get a higher share of the vote than the abortion-banning measure to become law.
Though seven states expanded or protected access to abortion, those laws now appear to be under threat. President-elect Donald Trump and the GOP—which look poised to capture unified control of Washington—could make abortion illegal at the federal level, overruling these state laws.
Most concerning is that the Project 2025 agenda—created by former Trump aides and allies who may get roles in the next Trump White House—calls for revoking approval of the drug mifepristone. Mifepristone is part of a common two-drug regimen used for medication abortions in early pregnancy. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States are medication abortions.
The Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for reproductive freedom around the world, said that if Trump and the GOP make good on that Project 2025 promise, it would “increase demand for procedural care, placing additional strain on clinics and increasing wait time for patients.”
But polls show that taking such a step could spell electoral disaster for Republicans.
A Civiqs poll from July found that 48% of registered voters say they would not support a candidate who has a differing position on abortion.
It’s cold comfort amid the grim reality of a second Trump term. But we’ll take wins where we can get them.
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