In this election, 10 states will ask voters how their states should regulate abortion — including a couple of presidential swing states like Arizona. The ballot initiatives come two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision, which led many states nationwide to restrict abortion access.
According to an abortion policy tracker from KFF, 13 states have banned access to abortion, 6 states have gestational limits between 6 and 12 weeks from a pregnant woman’s last menstrual period, and 5 states have a gestational limit between 15 and 22 weeks. Most of the initiatives in the 10 states would allow abortion until fetal viability and guarantee access to abortion by adding amendments to the state constitutions.
Pro-abortion advocates are hopeful these measures will pass, as similar ballot measures have succeeded in every state in the past, including conservative-leaning ones, in the 2022 and 2023 elections. The shift speaks to the changing landscape of the issue of abortion and how voters value it in a post-Dobbs landscape. As a bonus, what has long been seen as a divisive issue among politicians, could result in more voter turnout, especially in presidential swing states. The 10 states with abortion on the ballot are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota.
“There are some key strategies for winning on issues that are traditionally deemed progressive when we're working in states that are largely conservative or swing states,” Kelly Hall, The Fairness Project’s executive director, said in a press conference. “One of those is the importance of communicating to Republican and independent voters who do support this issue, but may be turned off by the messages that progressives would use if they were speaking to fellow progressives, and figuring out how to tailor that messaging to the entire electorate.”
Laura Dent, the campaign manager for Arizonans for Abortion Access, said that voter enthusiasm in support of Arizona’s measure, Prop 139, has been “undeniable.” Prop 139 would amend the state constitution so the government cannot “limit access to abortion before fetal viability without establishing that the limitation.” Notably, it would also protect access to abortion after fetal viability “if a treating healthcare provider determines an abortion is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient, using accepted clinical standards and evidence-based medicine,” as explained by the supporting campaign.
Arizona has been at the forefront of the national abortion debate since the Dobbs decision. Earlier this year, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions in the state. The decision, at the time, superseded the lower court’s ruling on a 15-week ban that happened in 2022. After a protracted back-and-forth between courts, abortion remains accessible up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. However, there is no exception for rape or incest. Arizona is also a presidential swing state, where polls show both presidential candidates are nearly tied.
“The ping pong around these policies is endangering our health and it's limiting our freedoms to make our decisions for ourselves,” Dent said, adding that the campaign got more than 800,000 signatures to get Prop 139 on the ballot, which was nearly more than half of what was needed. “One in five voters in Arizona signed this petition, and that was from the left, the right, and the center.”
Dent said this is the strongest citizen-led initiative ever in Arizona, adding this isn’t a “controversial issue.”
“The nation is with us on the freedom to make these decisions, and Arizona is absolutely with us as well,” Dent said. “We are seeing incredible support across independents in particular.”
By some estimates, undecided independent voters could be what tips the scale in swing states.
In Florida, Amendment 4 is the abortion initiative on this year’s ballot. If passed, the initiative would amend the Florida state constitution to prohibit government interference with the right to abortion before viability. According to the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, 70 percent of Florida voters said they would vote “yes” on Amendment 4. Ballot initiatives in Florida need 60 percent of voters to pass.
Lauren Brenzel, campaign director of Yes on 4, told Salon in a phone interview, that her experience on the ground when talking to voters is that abortion isn’t a partisan issue.
“People don't like politicians involved in their private medical decisions,” Brenzel told Salon. “And that's not limited to Democrats — that’s Republicans and independents who don't like that interference, as well.”
While Florida isn’t seen as a top swing state this year, the abortion issue could change how voters vote along party lines. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year suggested that the issue of abortion could be more influential in the 2024 election than other issues like the economy as it directly affected congressional voting in 2022. Diana Mutz, author of the study and director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics, told Salon, that in a state like Florida, abortion has the potential to shift people to vote Democrat when they normally vote Republican.
“The reason I think it's likely in 2024 is when we compare people who vote in midterms with people who vote in general elections, we know turnout goes up in a general election,” Mutz told Salon. “And we have a larger group of voters who aren't hardcore party voters in general elections.
In her study, they found that people who were in favor of having “some sort of choice on a federal basis” shifted toward Democratic congressional candidates in 2022.
“Now, that doesn't mean there weren't some that went in the other direction,” she said.
However, even in states where Trump is expected to win, pro-choice advocates are hopeful their abortion initiatives will pass. For example, in Missouri, Amendment 3 would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution. Missouri has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.
“If the past two years have shown us anything, it is that voters' opinions on abortion are far more nuanced and far less partisan than our typical right versus left political discourse would have you believe,” Rachel Sweet, the campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said at a news conference recently. “It's a health care issue, it is about our personal freedom and liberty to make our own decisions, and we know the majority of Americans support the right to abortion, and that includes the majority of Missourians.”
