Thanks to the Dobbs decision and pro-life leaders, 24 states have laws protecting unborn children at 12 weeks or sooner. Through ballot measures, abortion activists are trying to reverse that progress so anyone can get an abortion anytime, anywhere. These activists are targeting ten pro-life states which have laws that protect 30,000 babies in the womb annually.
The proposed constitutional amendments go far beyond Roe to establish unlimited abortion, eviscerate parental rights, and remove health and safety requirements for women. Though some of the measures include the word “viability,” the broad exceptions in the law ultimately allow elective abortion in all nine months. Ohio Democrats have introduced legislation that does this following the vote on Issue 1 laying bare the policy agenda they are pursuing but denied during the amendment campaign.
Under these ballot measures, girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own will be able to obtain an abortion without a parent ever knowing. Abortions won’t need to be performed by doctors and abortion facilities won’t need to be near hospitals or have hospital admitting privileges, putting women at serious risk. After the passage of Prop 1, Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer just signed a new law in Michigan that eliminates health and safety requirements for women.
Past losses show the pro-life side has an uphill battle. We have been majorly outspent in every race as outside left-wing groups and the abortion lobby have poured in tens of millions. In Ohio and other states, abortion activists’ lies were carried by a left-wing media machine which operated like the abortion industry’s PR department. The media repeatedly masked their opinion pieces as “news” and repeatedly quoted so-called “independent experts” in their fact checks who were documented leftists.
Pro-life and GOP leaders must engage in ballot measure fights NOW by raising money and vocally standing in opposition.
In South Dakota, where I live, support and opposition to the ballot measure is virtually even— with the majority of women opposing. Why is that? Because Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are sitting it out and haven’t poured money into the race. That’s an indication of how vital the money is to get the message out.
We need more GOP elected officials to lend their voices to stop the ballot measure just as we saw in Ohio in the last few weeks of the campaign. We gained ground as Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. JD Vance spoke out against Issue 1. An August election, however, truncated the time they and others were vocal about the ballot measure.
Pro-life officials in states with 2024 fights need to start sounding the alarm now, informing the public of how extreme these measures truly are and clarifying exactly what the laws in their state do. As the media and Hollywood attempt to drown out the voices of pro-life advocates in the states, it is crucial for elected officials and pro-lifers with a platform to take a public stand.
Attorneys general must also do their duty in guarding against deception and ensuring abortion activists aren’t violating the law. In Montana, state Attorney General Austin Knudsen has rejected a misleading abortion ballot measure for logrolling multiple choices into one initiative and precluding Montanans from passing future regulations on abortion.
In Arkansas, state Attorney General Tim Griffin is requiring activists to rewrite language because their proposed text was misleading. In Florida, state Attorney General Ashley Moody called out the proposed abortion amendment as one of the worst she has seen in terms of language that misleads voters, and questions why the sponsor did not provide clarity on when the right to abortion ends.
In South Dakota, state Attorney General Marty Jackley admonished abortion activists for unlawful misconduct in deceiving voters to sign petitions. He said, “Any suggestion that your proposed abortion amendment makes abortion legal only for the first trimester is contrary to the language of the proposed amendment.”
To win these ballot measures, the pro-life side must successfully expose the misinformation spread by abortion activists— chiefly that pregnant women can’t access emergency care without writing unlimited abortion in the Constitution. This not only deceives voters, but it also puts pregnant women in danger by causing confusion on whether they can receive the care they need at home in their states for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and complications. The truth is that every state in the country with a pro-life law has a life of the mother exception that allows for the timely and necessary care for pregnant women in an emergency.
Though ballot measures have previously posed a challenge for the pro-life movement, we must remember human rights battles are not won overnight. Throughout history, great injustices have taken time and persistence to rectify. The Dobbs victory was an enormous breakthrough, but as with every other major shift in the status quo in our nation’s history, it will take time for the laws to reflect the reality of that decision.
We must persevere in working to undo the abortion industry’s 50-year political monopoly and the deeply rooted lies abortion activists have sown to legitimize taking the lives of more than 63 million babies in the womb. Future generations are counting on us.
Kelsey Pritchard on February 2, 2024
