Abortion foes use government power to fight red-state ballot measures
Critics say abortion opponents are employing legal challenges, administrative maneuvers and even outright intimidation to derail proposed amendments.


Abortion opponents watch and pray in Jefferson City, Mo., as attorney Mary Catherine Martin is interviewed after the state's Supreme Court heard arguments on an abortion rights ballot measure for the November election. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Lori Rozsa and Annie Gowen
September 12, 2024 at 10:25 a.m. EDT

An unprecedented number of abortion initiatives are on state ballots this November, nearly all seeking to protect reproductive rights, but opponents are trying to defeat them even before the start of voting through legal challenges, administrative maneuvers and, critics say, outright intimidation.

In Missouri, the Republican secretary of state pulled an abortion rights measure from the November ballot until the state’s highest court ordered him to include it. ... In Florida, the governor’s election police arrived at voters’ front doors to question them about signing a petition for an abortion referendum — encounters that one man said “left me shaken.” ... And in Arizona, the state’s Supreme Court allowed government pamphlets on the proposed constitutional amendment there to describe a fetus as an “unborn human being.”

Conservatives are “really supercharged,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California at Davis and expert on the legal history of abortion. ... In part, the intensity reflects what’s at stake: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, every ballot measure put before voters has been approved, including in red states like Ohio. Those seeking to restrict abortion access have failed, even in conservative Kansas. ... “A lot of abortion opponents don’t think they would win a fair vote, so they’re not trying to. They’re trying to find other ways,” Ziegler said, including capitalizing on “election-law technicalities to keep these proposals from going before voters.”

Challenges escalated this summer after the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the secretary of state’s rejection of one ballot initiative because proponents had not followed rules related to paid canvassers. The arguments in Missouri as well as Nebraska, where that state’s top court must rule by Friday, centered primarily on whether the ballot proposals’ wording is too vague and whether they addressed only a single issue as required. ... “You’re seeing a period of experimentation because antiabortion groups haven’t found a winning recipe,” Ziegler added.

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By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Molly Hennessy-Fiske joined The Post in 2022 as a national reporter based in Texas covering breaking news and red states.follow on X @mollyhf

By Lori Rozsa
Lori Rozsa is a reporter based in Florida who covers the state for The Washington Post. She is a former correspondent for People magazine and a former reporter and bureau chief for the Miami Herald.follow on X @lori_rozsa

By Annie Gowen
Annie Gowen is a correspondent for The Post's National desk. She was the India bureau chief from 2013 to 2018. follow on X @anniegowen