Abortion is on the ballot in 10 states for the 2024 general election. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, every time abortion has appeared on a state ballot, abortion rights have prevailed. That’s why Republicans have been trying so hard to keep abortion off the ballot.
Generally, these ballot measures are attempts to enshrine protection for abortion rights into the state constitution, returning the right to the constitutional status it had before the fall of Roe.
Arizona
Currently, abortion is legal in Arizona up until 15 weeks but includes no exceptions for rape or incest for people seeking an abortion past the 15-week mark. Arizona’s Proposition 139 would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and protect access to abortion until fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks. To get on the ballot, organizers needed 383,923 signatures. They got 823,685—577,971 of which were certified by the Arizona secretary of state. Polls show strong support for the measure, which is why conservatives are trying to put their thumb on the scale.
Shortly after Arizona certified the ballot measure, the state Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion state legislators over language explaining the ballot question to voters. The pamphlet that will be sent to voters will use “unborn human being” to describe a fetus or embryo, which the state Supreme Court—with all seven justices having been appointed by Republican governors—said “substantially complies” with the statutory requirement that ballot measures be described impartially. There’s nothing impartial about the term “unborn human being.” It’s an anti-abortion dog whistle and swaps out scientifically defined terms like “fetus” for an amorphous phrase with no scientific meaning whatsoever. At least, “unborn human being” won’t appear on the ballot itself.
Colorado
Abortion access is robust in Colorado, with the procedure being legal at all stages of pregnancy. In 2020, state voters rejected a ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks.
Colorado’s 2024 ballot measure would amend the state constitution to officially recognize a constitutional right to abortion and would lift the prohibition on using state money for abortion services. The state already has a law, the Reproductive Health Equity Act, that codifies the right to abortion, but a constitutional amendment provides far more robust protection. However, this ballot measure has to pass with a supermajority of 55%.
People attend an abortion-rights rally in Miami on Sept. 14, 2024.
Florida
Donald Trump made far more people aware of Florida’s abortion-rights-restoring ballot measure when he recently flailed around trying to articulate his position. Currently, the state has a six-week ban, but the ballot measure would reverse the ban and protect abortion access to the point of viability. Trump initially suggested he would vote for the measure, saying six weeks is too few, then he walked that back by claiming that Democratic states execute babies after they are born, so now he’s voting against it.
The measure’s explicit constitutional protections are necessary given that the state Supreme Court once held that the constitutional right to privacy protected abortion, only to reverse that once conservatives came to dominate the court.
The amendment is supported by 55% of likely voters, according to a recent poll from Emerson College/The Hill, but it requires a 60% supermajority to pass. Of course, Gov. Ron DeSantis is pulling out all the stops, even sending police to question voters who signed the petition to get the amendment on the ballot. The state is also going after all ballots submitted by certain circulators—paid workers who help obtain signatures, alleging those circulators are known for committing fraud. With that, it would not be surprising to see Florida legislators make another move to get this off the ballot.
Maryland
Unlike other states’ measures, which were initiated by citizens, Maryland’s measure was placed on the ballot by the legislature after it approved the amendment last year.
As with Colorado, abortion is already broadly protected in Maryland, with no restrictions on when during pregnancy the procedure may be performed. Maryland also protects patients and providers from civil and criminal consequences of bans in other states.
However, passing a constitutional amendment that creates a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” provides better protection than legislation, which can be more easily reversed.
Missouri
State Republicans really don’t want abortion on the ballot in Missouri, so much so that earlier this month Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft tried to singlehandedly decertify the measure and take it off the ballot after a county judge ruled the amendment violated state law. This was after Ashcroft tried to describe the ballot measure to voters as allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth.” A Missouri appellate court slapped him down about that, just as the state Supreme Court slapped him down by ruling that the measure would remain on the ballot.
Missouri currently has a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. (The sole exception is a medical emergency, which remains ill-defined and leaves patients in limbo.) The ballot measure would amend the state constitution to protect abortion until viability, explicitly stating that abortion can be banned or restricted after that point (except to protect the pregnant person’s health). That’s why Ashcroft’s assertion that it would allow abortion “until live birth” was ridiculous.
A person holds a metal coat hanger—a symbol of the reproductive rights movement—at a protest in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 24, 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Ashcroft’s shenanigans may have backfired on him, as abortion-rights groups have doubled their fundraising totals since being certified for the ballot in mid-August. A late August poll from St. Louis University/YouGov found that 52% of likely voters back the measure and only 34% oppose it.
Montana
Montana currently protects access to abortion until fetal viability, and its ballot issue proposes to enshrine this access in the state constitution. Such a level of protection is necessary because the state legislature keeps passing restrictions that make obtaining an abortion much harder, such as mandatory ultrasounds, a ban on telehealth services, and a 24-hour waiting period for medication abortion. All of those restrictions were thrown out as unconstitutional earlier this year, a result based on the fact that the Montana Supreme Court held, in 1999, that abortion is protected by the state constitution’s right to privacy.
Montanans voted down a 2022 ballot measure to require medical care for infants born alive. That sounds benign, but it’s code for an anti-abortion falsehood purporting that doctors often botch abortions and then leave infants to die, or that abortions are being performed after a baby is born—one of Trump’s favorite lies. Not that it needs saying, but there are already a number of state and federal laws that prohibit killing a baby.
Nebraska
Things are weird in Nebraska, where the state Supreme Court has allowed dueling abortion measures on the 2024 ballot after a flurry of litigation. The Protect the Right to Abortion proposal would amend the state constitution to create a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability. The Protect Women and Children proposal would ban nearly all second- and third-trimester abortions and has no language protecting abortion in the first trimester. In other words, the measure would amend the state constitution to include a 12-week ban and allow legislators to still pass a total ban without running afoul of the state constitution. It enshrines restrictions but no protections.
Proponents of the anti-abortion measure have trotted out the same fear-mongering as in other states, claiming that somehow protecting abortion until fetal viability will sneakily allow for “unregulated late-term abortion.” Given the competing questions, expect things to get ugly in Nebraska. For one thing, it’s possible that both proposed amendments pass—which means both clearing a simple majority and receiving an affirmative vote of at least 35% of the total votes cast in the election—in which case the amendment with the most votes in favor would prevail.
Nevada
Abortion is currently legal in Nevada until 24 weeks, with a health exception beyond that. The measure this year would enshrine abortion in the state constitution, protecting it until fetal viability. Voters will have to approve the measure twice—once this year and once in 2026. Anti-abortion advocates insist this measure isn’t necessary and is misleading, as abortion rights are codified in state law.
That argument—that if anti-abortion forces came into power, they would leave the existing law alone—might carry more weight if the threat of a national abortion ban weren’t looming. Neither Trump nor his running mate, JD Vance, will clearly state that Trump, if elected this year, would veto a national ban, and Vance has expressed openness to just such a ban.
Abortion-rights activists march along Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 24, 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
There’s no reason to trust bad actors here. Amending the state constitution to protect abortion rights is the best move abortion-rights advocates can make.
New York
Although New York has strong abortion protections in statute, the proposed constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights … doesn’t mention the word “abortion.” Instead, it bans discrimination based on “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Here, abortion rights are part of a larger goal: an equal rights amendment that adds protections against discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Whew!
Normally, the state election board provides a plain-language explanation of a proposed ballot measure, but in this instance, thanks to Republicans on the board, the technical language of the measure will appear on the ballot instead. Republicans don’t have any explanation for their refusal to conform to election norms here, instead just whinging that if Democrats wanted to say “abortion” in the measure, they should have said “abortion” in the measure.
The proposed amendment doesn’t explicitly bar abortion restrictions but would likely make challenging possible restrictions easier since abortion restrictions could be said to be discrimination based on pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive autonomy.
South Dakota
South Dakota currently has a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It does have an exception to save the life of the pregnant person, but there’s confusion around what medical emergencies qualify.
South Dakota’s ballot measure would completely protect abortion in the first trimester, protect abortion in the second trimester but allow for regulations and restrictions, and allow for a complete ban in the third trimester, save for when it is necessary to protect the health of the pregnant person. As far as abortion-rights-restoring measures this year go, it’s the most limited. However, in a state where the existing ban is so complete that it doesn’t contain even an exception for the health of the pregnant person, only the life, this measure would be a big step forward.
Anti-abortion advocates continue to try to remove the measure from the ballot, and they’ve succeeded in getting a seven-day trial on the books later this month on their challenges to the petition. However, the measure will still appear on the ballot since the trial will begin after early voting kicks off. But the measure could become null and void if the trial finds in favor of the challengers.
The moves by anti-abortion advocates in South Dakota are similar to everywhere else. Rather than allowing the voters to decide—which they should be perfectly comfortable with if they truly believe the majority of their citizens want abortion to be banned—they’ve done everything to try to stop people from voting.
Meanwhile, Democrats rightly see this as a winning issue and one that could drive turnout. The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris recently launched a "Fighting for Reproductive Freedom" bus tour, planning at least 50 stops nationwide.
The campaign says its goal is to “rally voters and hold Trump and his MAGA Republican allies accountable for the devastating impacts of overturning Roe v. Wade.” This framing puts the blame squarely where it belongs—as much as Republicans want to evade that blame—and keeps abortion rights top of mind in the 2024 election season.
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