Abortion access wins: Reproductive rights keep triumphing at the ballot box

As the dust settles on the election, the pro-choice majority of Americans have spoken. Voters in New York, despite a swing towards Donald Trump, overwhelmingly approved ballot Proposal 1, enshrining in the state Constitution a right to exercise reproductive freedoms, despite somewhat being vaguely worded and confusing.

While the state already had relatively strong abortion protections, it’s always better to have rights enunciated in the foundational document. Albany Democrats fumbled in not making the abortion aspects of this ballot proposal explicit — it does not actually say the word “abortion” anywhere — but we trust that the language remains clear enough that the courts will understand that it means abortion.

New York wasn’t the only state where abortion rights won majority support from the public. Majorities also in Florida, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Maryland supported proposals to enshrine or expand abortion access in those states. The Florida measure scored 57% at the polls, but needed to reach the 60% threshold to be adopted in the state constitution, so it did not succeed. However the amendment received 6 million votes, 1.5 million more than the NO side, so the sentiments of Floridians is clear.

There’s some examination to be done here about why exactly so many voters seem to have split their tickets between a vote for abortion access and a presidential candidate who credibly took single-handed responsibility for having created the conditions for the end of a nationwide abortion right.

Perhaps some believed Trump’s mealy-mouthed assertion that he’d veto a national abortion ban, coming from a man who lies about things big and small at an astonishing clip. Others are likely to have never heard of or internalized Trump’s role in the overturning of Roe.

So time and again we know that voters will come out to defend abortion rights, even if they don’t necessarily grasp what led to the need for these rights to be defended in such a manner. This will be a challenge for pro-choice candidates going forward, who have run into a wall trying to convince voters that electing anti-choice candidates will have as much potential impact on their rights as voting against pro-choice ballot amendments.

Even in this fractured information environment, Trump and GOP his fresh Senate majority should keep this in mind as they embark on their agenda next year. Voters by and large hate abortion restrictions and they will not be able to pretend that these are Democrats’ fault somehow when they control the bulk of the federal government.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overrode Roe in 2022 and sent abortion back to the states, some state legislatures enacted bans. Now the public is being heard and they are overriding the lawmakers.

Moving to restrict or ban abortion is one of the few political third rails that might actually successfully stick to the famously slippery Trump, who has otherwise been adept at squirming out of responsibility for his acts. The damage from the Dobbs decision, taken over the finish line by Trump’s Supreme Court picks, is done now. Do not press the unpopular issue.