Abortion rights ballot measures pass in 7 states, fail in 3 others

Constitutional amendments to protect or expand abortion passed in seven of the 10 states where they appeared on the ballot Tuesday, NBC News projects.

Voters in Arizona and Missouri approved ballot initiatives that will effectively protect abortion rights until fetal viability and undo existing abortion laws on the books. But voters in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota rejected proposed amendments that would have done the same — becoming the first pro-abortion-rights ballot measures to fail since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Meanwhile, voters in Maryland, Montana, Nevada and New York (where abortion is already legal through fetal viability) and in Colorado (where there are no laws restricting abortion and no gestational limits for women seeking abortions), passed measures that will formally enshrine those existing rights. Organizers have said the amendments are designed to prevent lawmakers from undoing existing protections in the future.

In Nebraska, two dueling abortion-related measures were on the general election ballot. The one voters approved will protect abortion rights in the first trimester while barring the procedure in the second and third trimesters, except in medical emergencies or when pregnancies are the result of sexual assaults or incest. Passage effectively codifies the state’s existing law banning abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, in the state constitution.

The other amendment, that would have enshrined abortion rights until fetal viability in the conservative state’s constitution, was rejected. 

The defeats of the amendments in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota ended what had been an unbroken winning streak for ballot measures backing abortion rights in the 2½ years since the fall of Roe. 

In Florida, voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have barred restrictions on abortion before fetal viability and would have included exceptions past that point for “the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Under Florida law, the measure needed the support of 60% of voters to pass rather than a simple majority. With 96% of the expected vote in, the abortion-rights amendment had 57% support. 

Its failure preserves the state’s six-week ban on abortion, which includes exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the woman.

In South Dakota, the proposed amendment on the ballot would have made abortion legal in all situations in the first trimester of pregnancy. It would have allowed “regulation” by the state of abortion in the second trimester, but such regulation “must be reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” The amendment would have allowed “regulation or prohibition” by the state in the third trimester, except in cases when a physician has determined that the care would be necessary to “preserve the life or health” of the woman.

South Dakota has a near-total ban on abortion, which snapped back into effect after Roe was struck down in 2022. The ban, which abortion-rights groups say is among the most restrictive in the country, prohibits all abortions except when necessary to save the woman’s life.