Two years after the U. S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the nationwide constitutional right to abortion after 51 years and leaving a messy patchwork of state-dictated laws in its wake, a record 10 states have abortion-related initiatives on the ballot for the 2024 election.
Some of these states already provide ample access protection, some have near-total bans, but all 10 are giving voters the choice to enshrine a certain measure of abortion rights in their state constitution—at least until the federal government finds its way back to the 21st century and treating abortion as reproductive healthcare to which individuals have the fundamental right.
Why it’s important to pay attention to how ballot initiatives are worded
Ballot initiatives can be confusing. For starters, only half the states and Washington, D.C., allow for citizen-initiated ballot measures to amend their constitutions, which blows holes in the argument that abortion rights should be left to the states.
Also, initiatives tend to be confusingly written, sometimes deceptively so, to the point where it can be hard to know the meaning of a Yes or No vote. Case in point: Nebraska’s ballot has two dueling abortion initiatives, both equally unintelligible.
The fact that ballot “initiatives” go by a slew of synonyms—measures, amendments, propositions, even questions—seems par for the course. A few other complications: The thresholds, or what’s required for an initiative to pass, vary (with a few seeming downright punitive), initiatives in six states are already facing lawsuits, and locating where on the ballot their state’s initiatives appear.
According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. And since Dobbs upended abortion politics in the U.S. in June 2022, this is the largest abortion rights effort from the states. (The 2022 midterm elections saw six states with ballot initiatives related to reproductive rights—all passed, securing wins for pro-choice.)
And while this year’s initiatives are all different, most have a common goal—protecting reproductive rights and abortion access—many seeking to restore the protections in place under Roe. Here’s a rundown of the 2024 ballot initiatives by state:
Arizona
- Proposition 139
- Threshold: 50%
A Yes vote would amend the Arizona constitution to protect abortion access up to 24 weeks of pregnancy—currently, abortion is legal here for 15 weeks—and allow healthcare providers to decide when a fetus can survive outside the womb (known as fetal viability). Abortions would be allowed later in pregnancy to save the pregnant person’s life or protect their physical or mental health.
Prop 139 also would protect anyone who helps a person obtain an abortion. Yet, despite all this civilized reasoning, Prop 139 was hatched out of outrage. Last spring, the Arizona Supreme Court tried to revive an 1864 statute that outlawed abortions and actually threatened providers with “jail time.” Roe had rendered this zombie law moot, but now with no federal cover, there was nothing stopping it. The GOP-controlled state legislature quickly overturned the court’s attempted Civil War battle, but reproductive rights groups were taking no chances.
Colorado
- Amendment 79
- Threshold: 55%
Abortion access in Colorado is already legal at all stages of pregnancy, but a Yes vote would enshrine abortion protection in the state constitution, thereby preventing any future legislative changes.
Also, Amendment 79, spearheaded by Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom, would require Medicaid and all private health insurance plans to cover abortion services. This would replace a 1984 Colorado Article in the state constitution that prevented public funds from being used for abortions, except when necessary to save a pregnant person’s life.
Florida
- Amendment 4
- Threshold: 60%
If it passes, Amendment 4 would enshrine in the state constitution the right to an abortion until fetal viability (generally, 24 weeks) and after, if determined necessary by a medical provider to protect the health of the pregnant person.
While this would dramatically improve access to reproductive care in Florida, its passing is a BIG “if” in Ron DeSantis’s state. Since May, Florida has had a six-week abortion ban, one of the country’s strictest, written by the GOP-dominated state legislature and supported by the governor. (Before that, abortions were permitted until 15 weeks.)
And though backers of Amendment 4 managed to get it on the 2024 ballot, Governor DeSantis has sabotaged the initiative every which way, including sending intimidating “election police” to the homes of people who signed Amendment 4 petitions and using taxpayer dollars for a propaganda website created solely to discredit the ballot initiative. And then there’s that 60% threshold for passage.
Maryland
- Question 1
- Threshold: 50%
A Yes vote would enshrine the “right to reproductive freedom” in both Maryland’s constitution and Declaration of Rights, ensuring it could never be reversed by the state legislature. Yet Maryland already has some of the strongest abortion protections in the U.S.: no gestational limit, the procedure is covered by state Medicaid and private insurers, and patients traveling from states with abortion bans are protected.
“We’ve seen now that [51] years of precedent was not enough,” Erin Bradley, chair of Freedom in Reproduction Maryland (FIRM), a driver of Question 1, told the Baltimore Banner, a reminder that Roe had never been written into the U.S. Constitution.
Missouri
- Amendment 3
- Threshold: 50%
Missouri has the dubious distinction of being the first state to enact a near-total abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest, minutes after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
So a Yes vote here will amend the state constitution (and perhaps collective conscience) to codify a woman’s right to “reproductive freedom,” defined as the ability to self-determine decisions about contraception, abortion, and healthcare during pregnancy.
Spearheaded by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the initiative also protects abortion rights until fetal viability, permitting later abortions if needed for the health of the pregnant person. In addition, if passed, Amendment 3 would challenge many of the odious state laws that strapped abortion providers even when Roe was the law of the land.
Montana
- CI 128
- Threshold: 50%
If passed, Constitutional Initiative (CI) 128 would amend the state constitution to prevent government interference before fetal viability or as “medically indicated” to protect a pregnant person’s health. The initiative would also prevent the government from criminalizing patients and anyone who assists a person in exercising their abortion rights.
In fact, this isn’t Montana’s first rodeo with abortion-related ballot referendums. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republican state legislators attempted to stigmatize abortion with a ballot initiative intended to interfere in the pregnant patient-physician relationship. But a majority of Montana voters rejected whatever they were pushing.
Nebraska
- Initiative 434
- Initiative 439
- Thresholds: 50%
Nebraska voters will be weighing in on two competing abortion-related ballot initiatives, the numbers for which are too close for comfort. In Initiative 434, proposed by Protect Women and Children Nebraska, “unborn children shall be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters.” Translation: It would ban abortion after 12 weeks. This is essentially what’s already on the state’s books—but, if passed, the measure would be enshrined, making it much harder to appeal and help lead to a statewide abortion ban (which Republican Governor Jim Pillen and his anti-abortion allies support).
Initiative 439 would expand abortion rights, amending the state’s constitution and securing a “fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability.” Equally important, it would block lawmakers from passing a total abortion ban.
“All they want to do is instill confusion,” Allie Berry of Protect Our Rights, the group behind Initiative 439, told The Nation. And given the intended confusion, it’s certainly possible that both initiatives could pass. Or, as Secretary of State Bob Evnen told NPR, “it’s possible that one of the proposals could get approved and not be adopted.” Or, even more likely, there would be a protracted court battle.
Nevada
- Question 6
- Threshold: 50% x2
For the first time in more than 30 years, abortion will be on the ballot in Nevada. Currently, Nevada law allows the procedure within the first 24 weeks, or fetal viability, or later to protect the pregnant person’s health. Question 6 proposes nothing different, except to enshrine the state’s current abortion rights in Nevada’s constitution.
Sounds totally familiar, straightforward, but . . . in order for abortion to become a constitutional right in the Silver State, voters have to pass it twice. The 2024 general election will be the first time. The second? The 2026 midterms. Talk about delayed gratification.
New York
- Proposal 1
- Threshold: 50%
Abortion rights are on the ballot in New York State, even though “abortion” doesn’t appear in the text for Prop 1 and abortion has been legal here since 1970 (legal, perhaps, if not guaranteed). Turns out, a confluence of events in 2022—the fall of Roe and near ascent of an anti-abortion gubernatorial candidate—is responsible for launching Proposition 1, aka the Equal Rights Amendment.
But who is responsible for writing it? It was to prioritize reproductive rights while updating the state’s 1938 anti-discrimination classifications to include disability, gender identity, sex, age, national origin, etc. Passage should be a slam-dunk in a state where Democrats have represented a plurality of voters for decades. But considering the initiative’s oddly vague language—proponents suggest that “sex” broadly includes abortion rights—its opponents warn that barring gender-identity discrimination would protect trans kids playing on girls’ sports teams and “national origin” protection would allow noncitizens to vote. Sigh.
South Dakota
- Amendment G
- Threshold: 50%
South Dakota is home to some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, with all access banned, even for survivors of rape and incest, while also making it a felony to administer an abortion—the result of a 2005 trigger law that went into effect with the toppling of Roe. Amendment G is sponsored by Dakotans for Health, a statewide grassroots coalition, and would allow for abortion access on a kind of trimester framework, not unlike the original Roe v. Wade structure.
A Yes vote would guarantee an amendment to the state constitution, allowing the right to an abortion in the first trimester—in other words, the state would be prohibited from interfering. During the second trimester, the state could regulate abortion access, but only in ways “reasonably related to the physical health” of the pregnant person. After the end of the second trimester, abortion would be prohibited except when “necessary, in the medical judgment” of the attending physician to preserve the health of the pregnant person.