The GOP’s New Tactic to Block Abortion Votes Is Startlingly Successful

By Mary Ziegler
Sept 12, 2024

Conservatives have once again turned to the courts to keep people from voting on reproductive rights. Missouri and Nebraska were set to be among the 10 states where voters will weigh in directly on abortion rights, but anti-abortion groups have gone to court to block either one from moving forward. The conservative Missouri Supreme Court rejected this gambit earlier this week, while a ruling from the Nebraska Supreme Court is expected soon. But whatever happens, it’s worth paying attention to the strategy in these cases: a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose plan that either blocks voters from deciding about abortion rights or confuses the electorate about what is being decided.

A group of anti-abortion advocates and lawmakers had sued Missouri Attorney General Jay Ashcroft for having certified the ballot measure. Nebraska’s high court is considering two suits, one filed by a neonatologist opposed to abortion, a second by an Omaha resident.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/gop-blocks-abortion-votes-missouri-nebraska.html

12.09.2024

Commentary

abortion ballot measures

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice deception

anti-choice intimidation

anti-choice lies

anti-choice manipulation

ballot initiatives on abortion

GOP legislatures in some states seek ways to undermine voters’ ability to determine abortion rights

Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO Associated Press
January 28, 2024

CHICAGO -- Legislative efforts in Missouri and Mississippi are attempting to prevent voters from having a say over abortion rights, building on anti-abortion strategies seen in other states, including last year in Ohio.

Democrats and abortion rights advocates say the efforts are evidence that Republican lawmakers and abortion opponents are trying to undercut democratic processes meant to give voters a direct role in forming state laws.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/gop-legislatures-states-seek-ways-undermine-voters-ability-106743537

Missouri advocates launch campaign to restore abortion access in the state

It’s one of two ballot measure efforts to shore up abortion access in the first state to outlaw abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Grace Panetta, Political reporter
January 18, 2024

A coalition of abortion rights advocates in Missouri is formally launching a campaign to pass a constitutional amendment restoring a right to abortion, one of two ballot measure efforts in the state this year.

Missouri was the first state to outlaw abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 with a law that bans virtually all abortions and threatens physicians who defy the ban with felony charges. The ban has no exceptions for rape or incest, only for a threat to the patient’s health.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/01/missouri-abortion-ballot-measure/

Why ‘viability’ is dividing the abortion rights movement

By Associated Press AP
Jan. 16, 2024

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Reproductive rights activists in Missouri agree they want to get a ballot measure before voters this fall to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans in the country and ensure access. The sticking point is how far they should go.

The groups have been at odds over whether to include a provision that would allow the state to regulate abortions after the fetus is viable, a concession supporters of the language say will be needed to persuade voters in the conservative state.

Continued: https://ny1.com/nyc/brooklyn/ap-top-news/2024/01/16/disputes-over-viability-are-dividing-abortion-rights-groups-and-complicating-ballot-measure-efforts

Voters in at Least 10 States Are Trying to Protect Abortion Rights. GOP Officials Are Throwing Up Roadblocks.

Republican officials are undermining citizen-led ballot initiatives that seek to protect the procedure. Ohio is the latest state to get protections on the November ballot.

by Cassandra Jaramillo
Oct. 24, 2023

In Ohio, a GOP-controlled agency rewrote language for a ballot measure that would guarantee access to abortion in the state constitution, swapping in new wording that opponents said was designed to confuse voters. In Missouri, a Republican official launched legal challenges that have stalled a citizen-led effort to pass a law guaranteeing reproductive health care. And in Michigan, a Republican lawmaker went one step further, introducing a bill that would undo a popular new access law.

In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Gallup polling shows that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal, with two-thirds of those polled saying it should be permitted in the first trimester.

Continued: https://www.propublica.org/article/abortion-rights-ballot-initiatives-state-law

Not just Ohio: Biased language is the hot new tactic to thwart ballot measures

Wording can affect a measure’s support among voters

BY: ZACHARY ROTH
AUGUST 31, 2023

Abortion-rights supporters filed a lawsuit Monday against what they call “deceptive” ballot language produced by Ohio officials for the state’s closely-watched upcoming referendum on the issue. But it isn’t just the Buckeye State that’s lately seeing fierce battles over the once-obscure topic of ballot language.

In recent weeks, officials in Missouri — where another abortion-rights measure is at issue — and Idaho also have been accused in lawsuits of seeking to thwart citizen initiatives they oppose by using biased and negative ballot language to describe the issue to voters. Arkansas last year saw a similar court fight after a state board rejected a proposed ballot measure that had gained the required number of signatures, claiming the ballot language didn’t explain the issue in enough detail.

Continued: https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/08/31/biased-language-ballot-measures/