New York voters approved a sweeping equal rights amendment, Proposition 1, to amend the state constitution to protect abortion access and prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The vote in favor led by 72% to 28% when the Associated Press called the race after 9 p.m. eastern time with less than a third of the ballot counted.

The amendment changes the constitution to prevent a person’s rights from being denied on the basis of their “ethnicity, national origin, age, and disability” or “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

The Equal Rights Amendment was already passed last year by the New York legislature in two consecutive sessions, but also had to be ratified by a simple majority vote in November to become part of the Empire State’s constitution.

Although the Democratic supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment argued that the measure is necessary to protect abortion access in the state, the campaign against Proposition 1 asserted that it is not needed to protect abortion access. 

“New York legalized abortion in 1970 and is not under any threat of repeal,” the official statement from the New York Republican Party on the measure said.

The New York State Reproductive Health Act, passed in 2019, makes abortion legal up to 24 weeks gestation, which is often considered the approximate time in pregnancy that a fetus can survive outside of the mother’s womb. It also allows for abortion at any time of pregnancy to protect a woman’s life or health.

The Coalition to Protect Kids-NY criticized the amendment as using “dramatically vague” language that, in effect, would remove parental consent for decisions related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and reproductive health for minors.In the final days of the election season, the group New Yorkers for Equal Rights is spending as much as $2.4 million on advertisements in support of the amendment. As of September, the group only spent about 25% of its budget on direct voter outreach.