Home Christian News Abortion-Related Initiatives on Ballot in Five States

Abortion-Related Initiatives on Ballot in Five States

“Every human being bears the image of our Creator and should be treated with the utmost respect and care,” Duke told BP in a written statement. “This referendum enables us to ensure that our medical community will do everything in their power to save the life and health of each of these invaluable souls.”

California, already the No. 1 abortion-providing state, will further solidify its status if voters approve the Right to Reproductive Freedom Act. The proposal, approved and referred to voters by the legislature, would amend the state constitution to bar the state from denying or interfering “with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions,” including the right to have an abortion.

Jonathan Keller, president of the California Family Council (CFC), told BP, “Despite passing more than a dozen extreme bills through the legislature, California’s abortion advocates are pushing even further. Proposition 1 would enshrine abortion until birth in the state constitution and make it nearly impossible to prohibit killing children in the womb.

“Southern Baptist Churches have a vital opportunity to reach women facing unplanned pregnancies with Jesus’ love and hope,” he said in written comments.

CFC is a partner with the California Southern Baptist Convention.

Michigan’s voters will decide if a new “fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” which includes abortion, will be added to the state’s constitution. The amendment would permit the state to restrict abortion after the preborn child is viable, although it could not ban the procedure if it is “medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health” of the mother.

If adopted, the amendment would nullify any state law that conflicts with it, including a 1931 measure now in the courts that prohibits nearly all abortions.

Vermont’s Proposal 5 also would protect abortion access by inserting in the state constitution a “right to personal reproductive autonomy” that it describes as “central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course.” That right, which includes abortion, could only be impeded if the state has a compelling interest that can be accomplished “by the least restrictive means.”

In August, Kansas voters defeated in a vote of 59-41 percent an amendment to affirm the state constitution does not protect the right to abortion or require public funding of abortion. The rejection of the Value Them Both Amendment came in the first statewide vote on abortion after Roe’s reversal.

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In legislative and executive actions, West Virginia became in mid-September the latest state to enact a ban on abortions. That brings to 14 the number of states with “[t]otal/near total limits on abortion” in effect as of Oct. 10, Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-life America reported. In addition, Florida has a ban in effect on abortion beginning at 15 weeks’ gestation.

“Total/near total” restrictions on abortion in eight states await a final ruling in the courts, SBA Pro-life America reported. A similar prohibition will soon take effect in Iowa, according to the organization.

In addition to West Virginia, the states with complete or nearly complete bans on abortion, according to SBA Pro-life America, are: Alabama; Arkansas; Georgia; Idaho; Kentucky; Louisiana; Mississippi; Missouri; Oklahoma; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; and Wisconsin.

The state laws in effect or pending in the court will prohibit more than 205,000 abortions, according to SBA Pro-life America’s estimate.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization affiliated with the abortion rights movement, has estimated 26 states are sure or likely to prohibit abortion within a year after Roe’s reversal.

Since the high court overturned Roe, 66 abortion clinics in 15 states have halted performances of the procedure as of Oct. 2, the 100th day after the decision, Guttmacher reported. No clinics are offering abortions in 14 of the 15 states, according to the report.

Nine days before the Supreme Court’s ruling, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention continued a more-than-four-decades-old pattern of pro-life resolutions by urging the justices to overturn Roe and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that affirmed it. The resolution also urged state legislators to pass “pro-life policies that uphold the dignity and value of every human life, including both vulnerable women and children.”

This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.