Forced-birthers continued their efforts to outlaw legal abortion Tuesday.
Two of the three anti-abortion initiatives on state ballots this year succeeded Tuesday. Neither of them would prohibit abortion outright because Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey prohibit states from doing so before fetuses become viable. But both set the stage for criminalizing abortion if the 45-year-old Roe ruling is overturned by the Supreme Court, where extremist Brett Kavanaugh now fills the seat of retired moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy.
But let’s take the good news first.
By a 3-2 margin, Oregonians crushed Measure 106. Had it passed, it would have prevented state money being spent on abortions in Oregon except in instances of rape, incest, a threat to the woman’s health, or ectopic pregnancies. In other words, it would have ended abortion benefits for public employees and Medicaid recipients and overridden the state’s 2017 Reproductive Health Equity Act that guarantees everyone in the state access to abortion and other reproductive health services at no cost.
Lauren Holter at Rewire.News reports that supporters spent more than $444,000 campaigning for Measure 106 while foes led by the No Cuts to Care PAC and Defend Oregon spent $9.9 million opposing 106 and other ballot measures. Polls indicated before the election that 53 percent of Oregonians opposed the initiative, but with three-fourths of the ballots counted, 65 percent of those who turned out had voted against it.
In West Virginia and Alabama, it was a different story. Both successful ballot proposals are among the numerous “trigger laws” that four other states have already passed. Like the others, these two can’t prohibit abortion now, but they are designed to intentionally run afoul of federal rulings, generating what supporters hope are lawsuits that ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court and topple Roe.
The West Virginia proposal—Amendment 1, the No Constitutional Right to Abortion Amendment—passed with about 53 percent of the vote. It changes the state constitution by adding one sentence: “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.” That removes a state Supreme Court ruling 25 years ago that guaranteed a right to abortion care and Medicaid funding for low-income women. Previously, the state had banned such funding. Some 28 percent of West Virginia’s residents are on Medicaid, and Amendment 1 will mean that for many of them abortion will be unaffordable.
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