State ballot questions are often overshadowed by presidential elections and campaign ads that dominate the airwaves. Not this year. Abortion has been a driving issue for voters, regardless of political affiliation. Last week, in 7 of the 10 states where abortion was on the ballot, voters elected to protect and expand reproductive freedom, building on remarkable momentum that has been surging since six states voted to protect or thwart restrictions to abortion access in 2022, followed by Ohio’s protective ballot initiative that passed in a 2023 special election.
All of the protective measures adopted will restore abortion access through viability, the protection Roe v. Wade guaranteed before the Supreme Court ruthlessly overturned that decision. This citizen-led shift in abortion access is most monumental in Missouri, where abortion has been banned since SCOTUS delivered the Dobbs decision over two years ago. Colorado’s ballot also asked voters to lift a ban on public funds for abortion care, which a majority of them eagerly delivered. Even in states that leaned red in the presidential election, like Arizona, Montana, and Nevada, voters defended abortion access.
Voters’ support for reproductive freedom in these states is clear and unequivocal. Less clear is whether they expect the president-elect to uphold that very freedom or potentially nullify it with a national abortion ban. Among the 18 states that restricted abortion prior to this week’s election, 10 of them, including Montana, experienced a sharper-than-average decline in women’s labor force participation in 2023 compared to the year prior.
New York voters adopted an Equal Rights Amendment to their state constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health care and autonomy, among other anti-discrimination measures. About three-quarters of voters in Maryland elected to enshrine reproductive freedom. Both states, as well as Colorado, are among the 14 states with GDP per capita above the real national average that had already taken measures to protect abortion access following the fall of Roe.
Unfortunately, a strong majority of support for protecting abortion access in Florida still fell short of the steep 60 percent threshold required to amend the state constitution. Despite just over 57 percent of voters taking to the polls to convey to their elected leaders that they support access to abortion care and bodily autonomy, a legislatively imposed near-total six-week abortion ban will remain the law of the land in Florida. Some report the failure of this ballot initiative as a victory for Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed the state’s law prohibiting abortion before most people even know they’re pregnant. But over six million voters turned out in support of enshrining reproductive freedom in the state constitution. That’s over 1.5 million more than voted for DeSantis in his 2022 gubernatorial race—hardly a glowing review from Floridians on his approach to reproductive rights.
South Dakota came up short of the majority needed to enshrine reproductive freedom in the state constitution and instead will maintain its total abortion ban. Nebraska is so far the only state to buck the trend, where voters restricted abortion access. It is also the only state where two competing initiatives appeared before voters—one to protect and one to curtail reproductive freedom. The state will retain its 12-week abortion ban.
Abortion restrictions—especially extreme bans—cause immeasurable harm to women’s health and well-being. In addition to the perilous threat abortion bans pose on women’s health, states with severe restrictions on abortion care tend to have lower GDP per capita. As options and access to care are limited, women’s workforce participation is inhibited, thus straining state economies as employers compete to attract and retain talented workers and families struggle to stay afloat, let alone contribute back to the economy as consumers. Parenthood disproportionately impacts women’s participation in the labor force, especially with a lack of affordable child care and guaranteed paid family leave. Voting against abortion access and electing leaders who are working hard to restrict it just doesn’t make economic sense.
President-elect Trump insists the issue of abortion access should be “left to the states.” Yet again, at the ballot box, voters resoundingly expressed their view that reproductive freedom ought not to be left in the hands of their own state lawmakers; they’d rather enact a firmer constitutional right to it. In states like Florida and Missouri, legislative action taken by conservative state legislatures in recent years is in direct conflict with the will of the people, as evident last Tuesday.
Since Roe was struck down, Donald Trump has suggested his support for—and then backed off of—strict abortion bans. With the Senate soon to be controlled by Republicans and no party in clear control of the House yet, the fate of reproductive freedom at the federal level remains unknown.
The chaos and uncertainty that anti-abortion extremists have intentionally sewn nationwide around reproductive health care access remain alive and well. But time and time again, voters in both blue and red states across the country demand explicit protections for their most fundamental reproductive freedoms and bodily autonomy.
