Facing a series of losses, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies in state governments are employing various tactics to oppose planned ballot initiatives aimed at safeguarding reproductive rights or ensuring voters have a say in upcoming elections.
These strategies include efforts to remove signatures from initiative petitions, legislative moves to introduce competing ballot measures that could confuse voters, and legal challenges causing delays of several months due to disputes over the wording of ballot initiatives.
Abortion rights supporters note that many of these tactics were first tested in Ohio last year, where voters eventually approved a constitutional amendment affirming reproductive rights.
Similar strategies are now being utilized in at least seven states where initiatives to solidify abortion and reproductive rights protections are slated for the November ballot. These battles over statewide initiatives reflect ongoing divisions sparked by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago to overturn a constitutional right to abortion.
Recently, the court ruled in favor of maintaining access to a drug widely used in U.S. abortions, although disputes over mifepristone continue in numerous states.
Emma Horst discusses about the topic (Via Tom Cutter/Shutterstock)
The outcome of these ballot initiatives holds significant importance for both sides of the abortion debate. In states where Republicans dominate legislatures and impose stringent abortion restrictions, statewide citizen initiatives often serve as the primary avenue to uphold access to abortion and other reproductive rights.
Since 2022, voters in all seven states where abortion-related questions appeared on the ballot have either affirmed abortion rights or rejected efforts to curtail them.
In South Dakota, legislators passed a bill allowing residents to retract their support for citizen-led petitions. This sparked a concerted effort by anti-abortion groups to invalidate an abortion rights ballot measure by encouraging endorsers to withdraw their signatures.
In May, the South Dakota secretary of state condemned hundreds of calls from an anti-abortion organization accused of posing as government officials, labeling the outreach as a “scam.”
