Abortion Rights At Center Stage Ahead of 2024 Elections

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, abortion rights are a hot topic of discussion. The issue can be on the November ballot.

When it failed in 2022, Republicans quickly took motion. Fourteen states have outright abortion bans, and one other 27 states introducing prohibitions based on the duration of pregnancy. Eight states ban abortion before or at 18 weeks of pregnancy, and 19 states ban abortion in some unspecified time in the future after 18 weeks of pregnancy.

According to , an unprecedented number of initiatives on abortion can be sit on the state ballot within the upcoming November election, where most will seek to guard reproductive rights. On the opposite hand, those against abortion aim to defeat their opponents before the vote by implementing “legal challenges, administrative maneuvers and, critics say, outright intimidation.”

A law professor and expert on the legal history of abortion on the University of California, Davis, says conservatives are “really sensitive” about restricting access to abortion.

“A lot of anti-abortion people don’t think they’re going to win a fair vote, so they don’t try,” said Mary Ziegler. “They’re trying to find other ways. We’re seeing a period of experimentation because anti-abortion groups haven’t found a winning formula.”

To combat those on the opposite side, Democrats have a plan to maintain reproductive health care on the forefront. For example, several states, including Montana, Nevada, Maryland and New York, have introduced referendum measures to guard abortion rights.

Democrats are counting on states like Nebraska and South Dakota to maintain intact abortion remedies, thereby allowing voters in all 10 states that prioritize reproductive health care, and likewise allowing states to “write the right to abortion or reproductive health care decisions into their constitutions.”

“The question over the next 55 days is about groups on the ground making sure that accurate information about what people are voting for is being disseminated,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “Especially in a presidential election, misinformation and disinformation can be rampant.”

Through proposals like Arizona’s Proposition 139, which allows abortions as much as 15 weeks of pregnancy, with medical emergencies potentially being grounds for later exceptions to the law, the laws “would create a right to have an abortion at any time before viability outside the womb, approximately 24 weeks.”

However, any more, “the state will not be able to interfere with the good faith of the attending physician who determines that an abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman.”

“Our main concern right now is making sure Arizona voters know where to find us because we’re going to have the longest round of voting in the state’s history,” spokeswoman Dawn Penich said.

According to the report, the ballot paper can be two pages long, with the remainder of the second page being taken up by 13 propositions.

During the primary presidential debate between Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump, the subject of their heated exchange was abortion.

Trump raised eyebrows when he falsely claimed that many Democrats intend to “kill the baby” after giving birth to a baby after a nine-month pregnancy.

Harris, in turn, attacked Trump directly, citing his conservative majority victory on the Supreme Court as a reason to overturn it in 2022.

“Do you want to talk about what people wanted?” Harris asked in the course of the presidential debate. “Pregnant women who want to carry their pregnancies to term, who are having miscarriages, who are being denied emergency room care because health care providers are afraid they’ll end up in jail, and she’s bleeding out in her car in the parking lot?”

The 2024 presidential election can be held on Tuesday, November 5.