After suffering a string of high-profile losses, conservatives are trying new strategies to remove abortion from the ballot.
Various anti-abortion organisations are taking to the airwaves, doing door-to-door canvasses, and hosting events in places like Arizona, Florida, and Nevada to dissuade people from signing petitions that would bring the matter before voters in November.
Republican politicians in places like Oklahoma and Missouri are trying to increase the bar for an amendment to pass or even be considered for the ballot, while Republicans nationwide are suing state courts to remove referendums from the ballot.
New tactics are being developed with the intention of halting the third and biggest wave of ballot measures won by abortion rights organisations since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Conservatives may have rejoiced at Roe v. Wade’s decision to put abortion rights back on the ballot, but opponents of the procedure see these moves as anti-voter turnout, even in traditionally red states, and see restrictions on abortion as a necessary evil.
These moves come after victories for abortion rights in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Kansas, and they show that opponents of abortion are worried that their historic win in overturning Roe v. Wade is being rolled back, one state at a time.
Republican Representative Brad Hudson of Missouri stated, “I do not want to see abortion put in our constitution.” “The right to life is an inherent human right that cannot be taken away by a majority vote,” the speaker declared.
For the upcoming session, which starts next month, Hudson introduced a bill that would make it necessary for constitutional amendments to have the support of a majority of both the state’s residents and lawmakers from at least half of the eight congressional districts in order to be approved. Though voters would have to approve changes to the initiative process, this GOP plan is only one of several nationwide that would thwart attempts to have abortion protections enacted on the ballot in 2024.
Initiatives are being challenged in court by anti-abortion activists and Republican state solicitors general in states such as Missouri, Florida, and Nevada, who argue that the language is unconstitutionally imprecise, confusing, or misleading. Furthermore, conservative politicians and organisations are suing to prevent the implementation of abortion-rights initiatives in other states that have already enacted such measures.
Also, Republican state officials are escalating the process of certifying the ballot language and calculating the taxpayer cost into heated ideological disputes in an effort to slow it down or maybe halt it altogether.
Several conservative organisations demanded that the other states that still have citizen-led ballot initiative procedures eliminate them after the November vote in Ohio became the latest red-state triumph for the abortion-rights campaign. Beyond that, though, they are pressuring state authorities to obstruct the 2024 initiatives in every way they can.
“All options should be on the table,” stated Steven Aden, chief legal officer of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life. Abortion, in our view, is fundamentally about the right to life of unborn human beings, and we do not think that this right should be decided by a simple majority vote.
Liberals are preparing expecting conservatives to use a variety of strategies to block abortion-related bills from being put to a vote in November. They argue that the efforts against abortion rights demonstrate that this issue is still highly popular and can only be overcome by deceit.
“What we have learned from this growing drumbeat of opposition to citizen-initiated ballot measures from elected officials is that they continue to innovate, they continue to get more creative at how they want to deny voters the opportunity to vote on these questions,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the progressive ballot measure group the Fairness Project. “You have to stay one step ahead of the game.”
National and local anti-abortion organisations have begun “decline to sign” campaigns to obstruct groups attempting to place abortion rights on the 2024 ballot, with the goal of preventing voters from being asked to decide on the matter. These groups aim to stop more states, regardless of political leanings, from reinstating or codifying Roe-like protections.
In order to discourage individuals from providing organisers with the necessary signatures, the group Students for Life of America intends to use various tactics including as advertising, events, partnerships with churches, and sending staff and volunteers door to door in multiple states. These states include Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and Missouri.
Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist for Students for Life, informed the audience that they were under no obligation to assist the abortion lobby simply because they wanted to utilise their influence to boost Democratic voter turnout. No need to sign anything simply because someone is forcing you to do so with a clipboard.
Similar tactics are being used by anti-abortion organisations in South Dakota, Arkansas, Florida, and Nebraska. To give just one example, the Nebraska Catholic Conference is calling on its members to resist signing and to obstruct canvassers’ attempts to collect signatures from other people.
“If you encounter petitioners, charitably take up their time talking about the dangerous petition, to prevent other people from engaging and signing,” advised the group’s executive director, Tom Venzor.
At least three anti-abortion organisations in Florida have taken up the tactic, making it the most populous state with a ban on the procedure and a hotspot for progressives’ rush to collect signatures before the February deadline to be eligible for the November ballot.
Group leader Andrew Shirvell of Florida Voice for the Unborn said that 50 “captains” have been sent out across the state to distribute bilingual fliers urging people not to sign, and that a website has been set up where individuals can report seeing abortion-rights canvassers and “alert local pro-life advocates in the area to counteract the pro-aborts.”
Both Florida Right to Life and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops are engaged in similar endeavours; the latter group has called on its members to “peacefully intervene” if they observe someone gathering signatures to constitutionally protect abortion.
As the deadline collecting signatures draws near, Shirvell attributes the difficulties experienced by Planned Parenthood and other groups supporting the ballot proposal to these attempts.
We can see that this is working. A decline in the rate of confirmed signatures over the past three months has been noticeable, he added. “So I believe we’re going to achieve a remarkable triumph on February 1. If we are successful, it will be a turning point for the pro-life movement, allowing us to regain the ground we lost last year.”
Conservatives have other options to prevent the proposals from reaching the ballot if these ones don’t work.
The Republican attorney general of Arkansas recently deemed the proposed constitutional amendment’s name and ballot title confusing, contradictory, and potentially redundant; the amendment aimed to restoring abortion rights in the state up to 18 weeks after conception. In Missouri, Republican state officials fought for months over duelling amendments to the state constitution that would have legalised abortion. While conservatives were successful in changing the ballot text in Ohio, they were unsuccessful in Michigan, where amendments were approved by a wide margin.
This summer, Republican state officials in Missouri also claimed that the state would lose billions of dollars annually due to abortions, which would be financially devastating to the unborn children of Missouri. Abortion rights groups will have a harder time raising money and gathering signatures due to the delays, even if they lost in court.