(ZENIT News / Washington, DC, 08.09.2024).- In the ballots on November 5, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota will decide in favour of the right to life or abortion. On the same day the President is elected, the citizens will decide in favour of the life of conceived babies or their murder.
The consultations are taking place after the repeal of the Roe v. Wade law of 2022, which returned to the States of the Union the power to legislate on abortion. Almost half have legislated to protect babies in the maternal womb. In November’s voting, eight amendments have been promoted by citizens that collected thousands of signatures necessary to foster the change and two arose in the State Chamber.
Conservatives support the rejection of abortion, although last week John Thurston, Arkansas’ Secretary of the State said that the documentation was lacking to include the petition on the electoral ballot. And in Arizona, an attempt was made to take up again a 1864 law that prohibited abortion, but the defenders of the murder of babies in the maternal womb collected numerous signatures for voters to define if they will protect that right up to the foetus’ viability.
In Colorado, the pro-abortion measure received sufficient support to request the vote; the pro-life initiative did not get the minimum number of signatures before the April 18 deadline to defend babies, proposing that they “not be dismembered, mutilated, poisoned, scalded, left to die for lack of warmth or nutrition, or murdered another way.”
The pro-abortion measure holds that the current State laws that permit abortion during the nine months of pregnancy and demands that the government “not deny, impede or discriminate the exercise of the right to abortion, including the prohibition of health insurance coverage for abortion.”
Given this law, Florida proposes adding the right to abortion beyond the six weeks of pregnancy if the a woman’s doctor considers it necessary. In April, the Court’s Judges said that the measure could appear in the consultation. The proposal of amendment to the Right of Reproductive Freedom in Maryland intends to consolidate the “right” to abortion and would back the promulgation of pro-life laws. At present Maryland doesn’t establish gestational limits to abortion, and it requests that parents be notified for a minor to undergo such an operation.
Missouri’s law protects unborn babies during the entire pregnancy, with the sole exception of cases of “medical emergency.” Missouri’s Catholic Conference is opposed to ”an extreme Constitutional amendment that legalizes abortion at any stage of pregnancy without protection for the unborn child, including when the child is able to feel pain.”
The amendment will be voted on that “would prohibit any regulation of abortion, including those destined to protect women who undergo abortions and would prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone carrying out an abortion and harm or kill the pregnant woman.”
Montana’s proposal would amend the State Constitution to “provide expressly a right to take and carry out decisions on the pregnancy itself, including the right to abortion.”
The initiative would guarantee the right to abortion before foetal viability, consecrating Montana’s 1999 Supreme Court ruling, which held that abortions prior to visibility fall under a Constitutional “right to privacy.”
And it would prohibit the Government to deny or put a charge on the right of abortion before foetal visibility,” in addition to “denying or putting a charge on access to an abortion” if the doctor determined that it’s necessary to protect the woman’s “life or health, as well as “preventing the Government from criminalizing the patients, health providers or anyone who assists someone in the exercise of her right to take and carry out voluntary decisions on her pregnancy.”
Montana’s Catholic Bishops wrote a letter in May denouncing the proposal, describing the initiative as an attack on the “recognition of the infinite dignity that all people enjoy.”
Nebraska is the only State of the Union where voters will vote on two opposing measures on abortion. One would consecrate constitutionally the current pro-life protection and the other the Constitutional “right” to abortion.
Nebraska’s current State law restricts abortion after approximately 12 months. The pro-abortion measure would consecrate the “right” to abortion up to the point of viability or later to protect the health of a pregnant woman.
Nevada’s voters will choose to permit abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Nevada’s legislation requires a simple majority in two consecutive elections for a State Constitutional amendment; hence, it would have to be approved again in 2026.
The proposal to be voted on in New York would prohibit discrimination based on the “results of the pregnancy” or the “expression of gender.” On May 7, a State Court of New York State blocked the petition so that it would not be voted on. The Court of Appeals decided unanimously on June 18 to allow the voting.
South Dakota’s Secretary of State confirmed in May the voting on the pro-abortion amendment that would establish “a Constitutional right to abortion” and allow the procedure during the nine months of pregnancy. At present, abortion is illegal in South Dakota with the exception of cases of risk to the mother’s life.
