In Tuesday night’s elections, five states either passed referendums supporting abortion, or rejected measures that would have restricted the practice.
As reported by The Hill, voters in the states of California, Vermont, Michigan, Montana, and Kentucky voted in favor of increased access to abortions. In the blue states of California, Vermont, and Michigan, voters passed measures to enshrine abortion rights in each of their states’ respective constitutions, the first time that any state has done so. California’s measure passed with roughly 68 percent of the vote, while Michigan’s initiative passed with just 53 percent of the vote.
In the red state of Kentucky, where Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) easily won re-election, voters simultaneously voted against a measure that would have declared that there is no right to an abortion in the state’s constitution; the measure was defeated with 52 percent of the vote, with 47 percent voting in favor of it.
And in Montana, another deep red state, 53 percent of voters rejected the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act,” a proposed law that would have declared that any fetus or embryo that survives an abortion attempt must be legally considered a person and protected by law, with criminal penalties for doctors who do not attempt to save its life.
Earlier in the year, voters in another deep red state overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have allowed the state legislature to ban abortion. During the primary in Kansas, the “Value Them Both Amendment” was rejected by 59 percent of the voters, with just 40 percent voting in favor.
These developments follow the historic decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this year, determining that Roe was incorrect in its declaration that abortion is a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. In its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court determined that the matter of abortion should be returned to the individual states to be decided on a state-by-state basis. Democrats have since attempted to weaponize the ruling to energize their base; although these measures appear to have passed, several of them – including the votes in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana – did not translate to broader Democratic victories in certain statewide races.