Abortion Rights Were On The Ballot In Those States. Here S What The Voters Decided.

  Voters in three states moved to protect abortion rights Tuesday, CNN reports, following a months-long push by Democrats nationally to act on the issue following the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in June .   

  Lawmakers and party organizers have cast the midterm elections as a referendum on Republican efforts to limit women’s choices, even as voters have consistently expressed more concern about issues such as the economy.   

  “This fall, Roe is on the ballot,” President Joe Biden said in a defiant speech from the White House hours after the Supreme Court decision.   

  While CNN predicted some anti-abortion Republicans would win their races, voters in key states made their support for abortion rights clear through a series of ballots.   

  Here’s a running list of what voters decided on Election Day.   

  Michigan voters voted Tuesday to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, a move that will help prevent a decades-old abortion ban from being implemented, CNN projects.   

  The passage of Ballot Proposition 3 amends the Michigan constitution to establish an “individual right to reproductive liberty, including the right to make and carry out all decisions related to pregnancy.”   

  Michigan has a 1931 law that effectively bans abortion in the state, but that law is blocked by the courts.  Passing the proposition on the ballot helps prevent the ban from being implemented.   

  The amendment allows the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, unless necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient.  It also prohibits the state from prosecuting a person for an abortion or miscarriage, or from prosecuting someone who assists a pregnant person in “exercising the rights established by this amendment.”   

  The proposition had to overcome legal challenges to get on the ballot, with the Michigan Supreme Court ordering officials in September to put the question on the ballot in a 5-2 decision.   

  “We are energized and motivated now more than ever to restore the protections lost under Roe,” Darci McConnell, a spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All, a group supporting the effort, said in a statement after the decision.   

  Michigan Republicans had criticized the court’s decision, along with another proposal for voting rights ballots.  “Despite the court’s decision, these measures remain too extreme for Michigan, and we are confident they will be easily defeated at the polls in November,” Elizabeth Giannone, deputy communications director for the state party, predicted in a statement.   

  The California Constitution will protect the right to an abortion after residents on Tuesday passed a ballot initiative to enshrine the right in the state’s governing document, CNN projects.   

  Currently, the state constitution guarantees a right to privacy, which the California Supreme Court has ruled includes the right to abortion.   

  In May, after the US Supreme Court’s draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, California Democratic leaders Gov. Gavin Newsom, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins and state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said in a statement that they would propose an amendment “so that there can be no doubt as to the right to abortion in this state.”   

  The Democratic-controlled state legislature approved in June to put the amendment on the November ballot.   

  “Proposition 1 ensures that no matter what the future legislature looks like, what the next governor looks like, that the people of California have constitutional protections that expressly ensure that the state will not interfere with their right to reproductive freedom,” he said. Jodi Hicks.  head of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California and co-chair of the Yes on Prop 1 campaign, previously told CNN.   

  The California Family Council has said the proposed amendment is an “extreme and costly proposal that does not promote women’s health.”  And the California Catholic Conference, which opposes Proposition 1, called it “a misleading ballot measure that allows unlimited late-term abortions — for any reason, at any time, even moments before birth, paid for with tax dollars.”   

  The Yes on Prop 1 campaign previously said the proposal would not change “existing state constitutional protections and laws that place the right to choose an abortion before the viability or protection of the life or health of the pregnant woman.”   

  The measure takes effect on the fifth day after the vote is certified.   

  Vermont voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the state constitution that abortion rights advocates say would protect “every individual’s right to make their own reproductive decisions,” including pregnancies, abortions and birth control. of CNN programs.   

  The Vermont Constitution will now be amended to read: “That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the freedom and dignity to determine his own life course and shall not be deprived or infringed unless justified by compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means’.   

  Abortion is currently legal at all stages of pregnancy in Vermont.  The proposed amendment was first introduced by the Vermont Legislature in 2019.   

  The Vermont Committee for Reproductive Freedom Voting, the coalition that supported Article 22, previously said state-level protections “are critical to ensuring access” now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.   

  “It would mean that access to abortion is codified in the state constitution, and really the most important part of that is that it’s protected for the long term, and it means that access will be there, no matter what our politicians do.”  Sam Donnelly, the coalition’s campaign manager, previously told CNN.   

  Both proponents and opponents of Section 22 have said that its passage means Vermont lawmakers would be unable to pass any restrictions or regulations on abortion in the future, because then they would be deemed unconstitutional.   

  Mary Beerworth, the executive director of the Vermont Right to Life Commission, which opposes the amendment, had said the proposal goes “much further” than codifying abortion rights in the state constitution.   

  “It will cover a wide range of anything that concerns your personal reproductive autonomy, from surrogacy, three-parent embryos, designer babies, minors potentially accessing hormone blockers for transgender surgery without their parents’ knowledge or consent,” she previously said. .  CNN.  “If it passes, it opens up a whole new world here.”   

  Kentucky.  Voters in the Blue Grass State on Tuesday considered an amendment to the state constitution that it says does not “guarantee or protect the right” to abortion or the financing of abortion.   

  The question before the voters was: “Are you in favor of amending the Constitution of Kentucky by creating a new Section of the Constitution to be numbered Section 26A to state as follows: For the protection of human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be interpreted as guaranteeing or protecting the right to abortion or requiring the financing of abortion?’   

  Montana.  Voters in Montana, meanwhile, considered a referendum that would impose criminal penalties on health care providers who fail to act to preserve the lives of babies born during an abortion.   

  This story will be updated as election results become available.