Anti-abortion advocates took home a surprise victory on election night with the rebuke of three of the sweeping abortion amendments on ballots in 10 states across the country, breaking the trend of electoral wins for abortion-rights measures in each referendum since the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Measures that would have allowed abortion until fetal viability did pass on Tuesday in two states that implemented gestational age restrictions on abortion following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. But similar amendments in Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska, each with their own post-Dobbs limits on abortion, failed to gain the necessary votes to pass.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, said in a statement that she and her organization “celebrate the lives that will be saved with the defeat of pro-abortion ballot measures in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota.”
“When GOP leaders engage, extreme abortion ballot measures fail because they are exposed for what they are and fearmongering lies are refuted,” Dannefelser said.
Abortion has been front-and-center during the 2024 campaign up and down the ticket in the first presidential election year since Dobbs.
But with President-elect Donald Trump steering the Republican Party toward the position that abortion is no longer a federal issue, all eyes turned to the 10 states that had abortion rights measures on the ballot this year.
Democrats strongly pushed for abortion access as their top message during the 2024 campaign in part because, until Tuesday, each state following Dobbs that had abortion on the ballot always tilted toward the abortion-rights camp.
But election night proved to be the largest win for the anti-abortion movement since the Dobbs decision following the slew of electoral losses in 2022 and 2023.
The results in Florida were called relatively early on election night, with support for the amendment to enshrine a fundamental right to abortion falling short of the 60% threshold necessary to pass by about 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Although the abortion rights measure in Florida did win the popular vote, the South Dakota abortion amendment was voted down by a definitive majority, over 60%, with the final tally in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Unique situation in Nebraska
Nebraska was the only state in this election to have two competing abortion rights amendments on the ballot.
Initiative 434, which allows for unrestricted abortion until 12 weeks of pregnancy, passed 55.3%-44.7%, according to the Associated Press with nearly all of the votes counted by Wednesday morning.
A competing amendment, which would have enshrined in the Nebraska constitution a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, Initiative 439, was defeated by more than 24,000 votes, 51.3%-48.7% with 99% of the votes counted.
The passage of Initiative 434 effectively enshrines into the state constitution the current statutory law on abortion, which bans the procedure after 12 weeks gestation and has exceptions for survivors of rape and incest and to save the life of the mother.
The amendment also directly states that “unborn children” would be protected under the law in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Fetal viability, the alternative standard, can be achieved anywhere between 22 and 25 weeks of pregnancy.
Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE), a strong ally of anti-abortion activist groups, campaigned strongly in favor of Initiative 434 as a compromise measure, painting Initiative 439 too extreme.
Pillen also engaged in a large public service campaign that the 12-week abortion limit did not jeopardize care for women in pregnancy-related emergencies, such as miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, which is a common argument of abortion-rights advocates.
“If the playing field is evened by pro-life elected officials fighting back, life wins,” Dannefelser said. “Abortion activists’ lies do not prevail when Republicans devote money and massaging to the truth.”
Successful state abortion rights amendments
Several states with anti-abortion legislation implemented in the aftermath of Dobbs did vote in favor of abortion rights. This was particularly true for states that either had a rocky implementation of abortion restrictions or had much more strict limitations on the procedure.
Until yesterday’s vote, Missouri was one of only nine states that had an abortion ban without an exception for survivors of rape or incest and only allowed exceptions when an abortion is deemed necessary to save the physical health of the mother.
The Missouri amendment, which passed 51.7%-48.3%, is phrased as a broad reproductive freedom amendment, which includes but is not limited to abortion, birth control, and fertility treatments.
Arizona voters also passed an amendment by over 60% that would enshrine a right to abortion until fetal viability into its constitution, in large part due to a series of complicated legislative and judicial developments in the aftermath of Dobbs.
A thorny turn of events resulted in a protracted legal battle in the state between the contemporary law allowing abortions until 15 weeks of pregnancy and an 1864 statute, passed before Arizona was a state, that prohibited all abortions that were not life-saving.
Republican operatives in the Grand Canyon state told the Washington Examiner ahead of Election Day that many voters may have gone into the polls thoroughly confused about abortion statutes in the state.
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Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and New York passed abortion-rights amendments on election night, but each of them already had legislative means to protect abortion access.
Enshrining the rights into the text of the constitution only prevents future legislatures from directly making changes to abortion policy.