Voters in four key states are weighing specific abortion ballot questions that drive home the post-Roe world outside of the federal grasps. Elsewhere in the country, measures dealing with Medicaid expansion, the regulation of dialysis industry, and whether access to healthcare is an enforceable right are being considered.
According to Axios, republicans have their eye on potentially overhauling programs like Medicare, trying to repeal Democrats drug pricing law, and investigating the federal pandemic response. Statewide, votes are reinforcing how many key decisions are devolving to governors, legislatures and state regulators.
Voters in California, Michigan and Vermont will consider whether to amend their state constitutions to protect the right to abortions.
Kentucky and Montana voters will face questions on further restricting abortion rights and conferring legal rights on fetuses.
Such initiatives boost turnout, as we saw in the Kansas primaries when an amendment that would have struck abortion protections in the state’s constitution was soundly rejected.
“The public is not as extreme as the politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. They’re likely to not want a virtual ban on abortions, particularly when the health of the mother is at stake, when there is rape or incest, or a really unacceptably short time period,” Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Axios.
“I think you might see, like in Kansas, people moving to moderation both on health care and abortion,” Gostin said.
