Virginia voters will decide the future of abortion access
Virginians will determine whether to enshrine the protection of reproductive rights into the state constitution later this year. Read more at 19th News
Virginians will determine whether to enshrine the protection of reproductive rights into the state constitution later this year. Read more at 19th News
The uptick comes as progressives have found success with ballot measure campaigns to expand or protect abortion rights in state constitutions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. In 2024, those initiatives passed in seven of the 10 states where they were on the ballot, including Missouri. Read more at … Read more
Virginia’s constitutional amendment process calls for both chambers of the legislature to approve a ballot measure twice — with an election separating the two votes — before it can go to voters. Democrats won control of the legislature in 2023 and this year approved the measure with no Republican support. Its fate will be decided … Read more
Abortion opponents have sought before to connect abortion rights to gender-affirming care, including in the November election in Missouri. But this would be the first time a state attempted to outlaw both abortion and gender-affirming care in one constitutional amendment, at a moment when Republicans across the country, including President Donald Trump, have focused their … Read more
The lawsuit marks the latest effort by advocates to make good on the pro-abortion rights ballot measures passed by seven states in the November elections. While these measures amended states’ constitutions to protect or expand abortion rights, they did not actually rewrite pre-existing state laws. Abortion restrictions must now be knocked down through litigation or … Read more
“State constitutions provide no protection whatsoever against Comstock Act, against the Trump national abortion ban, against fetal personhood within the 14th Amendment,” Cohen explained. “Which is why there were many of us who were trying to get the word out before the election, that if you really do care about reproductive freedom and vote accordingly … Read more
Yet now abortion has been enshrined in the Missouri Constitution, and a litany of Republican officials are calling for lawmakers to put another constitutional amendment on the ballot rolling back those rights. “For years,” Harris said, “we’ve been discussing making it more difficult to put something in the state constitution. That’s something that Republicans need … Read more
“They’re not bringing it up, so I’m bringing it up,” she said. “I’m having to say to people: ‘Are you concerned about a national ban? Do you realize that if we don’t maintain the state legislature and supreme court, a Republican majority will actually go in and try to undo what Prop. 3, even though … Read more
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin that asks the court to declare that access to abortion is a right protected by the state constitution, according to a draft court order obtained by Wisconsin Watch. Read more at 19th News
For some Republicans, the effort for a measure raising the threshold to amend the constitution became more urgent this year after abortion rights proponents started gathering signatures to try to undo the state’s ban. Lawmakers like Brattin wanted Coleman’s resolution to go on the ballot in August in the hopes that it would raise the … Read more