The first ballot test of the post-Roe era will be on Aug. 2, when Kansas voters are presented with a proposed constitutional amendment that declares that there’s no constitutional right to abortion.
In anticipation of the ruling, state lawmakers across the country have been adopting legislation that would go into effect if the Supreme Court kicked abortion regulation back to the states.
According to Congressional Quarterly/Fiscal Note, of those 500-plus proposals, lawmakers in nine states have adopted 33 new abortion restrictions as of May 2.
Those new laws include “trigger bans” that prohibit abortion from 15 weeks, approved this year in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Oklahoma’s new law would ban abortion at six weeks.
Court rulings have suspended such “trigger bans” in Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and South Carolina. Those rulings would likely be overturned in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Mississippi case.
Depending on how laws are implemented, abortion access would be dramatically curtailed in 23 to 26 states if the leaked draft ruling went into effect.
The likelihood of the Supreme Court tossing out Roe v. Wade has also spurred lawmakers in seven states to adopt 11 bills that protect access to abortion, including New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. California lawmakers passed a law to make abortions less expensive for private insurance plans. In Colorado, legislators codified abortion access in the state when they adopted their Reproductive Health Equity Act.
In Maryland, where the legislature passed four abortion access measures this year, lawmakers overrode Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s objections to several provisions.
In addition to legislative actions, lawmakers and activists on both sides of the issue have proposed ballot initiatives in several states that would directly appeal to voters. At least four proposed ballot measures addressing abortion are sure to be on 2022 ballots because lawmakers put them there. Three seek to restrict the procedure.
The Oklahoma Senate this year also passed proposals to place “no right to abortion” and “rights of the unborn” proposed constitutional amendments on November’s ballot. But with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signing a bill into law on May 3 that prohibits abortion at six weeks, it’s uncertain if the House will advance the two prospective measures to the ballot before the session adjourns on May 27.
If adopted, the Vermont Constitution would state that “an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course.”
Lawmakers had to adopt resolutions in consecutive legislative bienniums to get on the ballot via legislation. Vermont legislators passed the resolution in 2019–20 and again in 2021–22.
In Colorado, where lawmakers passed a Reproductive Health Equity Act enshrining abortion access this year, pro-life forces are nevertheless mounting a signature-gathering petition to get a proposed ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother adopted by voters in November.
They need 124,632 valid signatures by Aug. 8 to qualify.
Similar measures seeking to restrict abortion in Colorado haven’t fared well. In 2020, Coloradans rejected an initiative to ban abortions after a fetus reaches 22 weeks.
The prospective amendment would create a state constitutional right to reproductive freedom, which it defines as “the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.”
Sponsors need 425,059 signatures by July 11 to get on the November ballot.
