GW Reproductive Autonomy and Gender Equity is advocating for initiatives to protect abortion that will appear on the ballot in 10 states Tuesday. 

New York, Maryland, Colorado, South Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Montana and Missouri have ballot initiatives to either protect or restrict abortion on the state level — the most abortion-related ballot initiatives in a general election on record. Stephanie Spector, the co-president of GW RAGE, said the organization held an event Oct. 15 to educate students about each of the ballot initiatives and has posted on social media detailing the initiatives on the ballot in each state.

Nebraska is the only state in this election cycle with a measure to ban abortion in the second and third trimester on the ballot, while the other nine states that have abortion initiatives on the ballot have measures that would protect the right to abortion. Of the 11 abortion initiatives on state ballots, nine are citizen-initiated and two come from the legislature. 

Spector said many students did not know abortion-related measures were on the ballot in their state because some of the language on the ballots can be misleading. She said many of the state amendments do not have abortion in the title, so people may be confused on what they are voting on if they do not read the full text on the ballot, which can be lengthy.

“A lot of the ballot language is really confusing, and a lot of that is very intentional,” Spector said. “They’re kind of supposed to trick people into voting the opposite way. We’ve been just trying to educate folks about what these initiatives are, you know, what the language is saying and how to vote for them.”

In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, which federally protected the right to abortion until 24 weeks. In the 2022 midterm elections, six states had abortion on the ballot. Voters in Kentucky, Kansas and Montana rejected initiatives seeking to restrict access to abortion and voters in California, Michigan and Vermont approved initiatives to protect the right to abortion.

28 states have laws banning abortion before viability with the procedure being almost completely illegal in 13 states, including South Dakota and Missouri.

Spector said Florida’s abortion ballot initiative is particularly “confusing.” The Florida initiative includes language about how the rise in abortions that could occur if the measure passes could “negatively impact the state budget.” 

“It’s obviously a very, very leading question,” Spector said. “And if folks didn’t really know anything about it, much about abortion access in the state after reading that, they would just be inclined to vote no because they don’t know really any better.” 

Spector said the abundance of ballot initiatives seeking to protect the right to an abortion in their respective states shows that people want their states to solidify access to abortion that Roe v. Wade once protected. 

“The fact that so many states have been able to bring it to their ballots just really goes to show that people want abortion rights enshrined,” Spector said. “A lot of folks do not agree with the abortion bans that are being implemented by their governments.”

A 2015 study in the Political Communication journal found that obscure or confusing ballot language in close races is enough to skew the outcome by misleading voters to vote a certain way, especially if voters have not heard of the initiative before voting. The study found that increased exposure to campaigns and information on initiatives reduces the effect of ballot language. 

Isel Neira, a first-year from Florida, said she voted to protect abortion rights in her state because she does not agree with the current six-week abortion ban the state has in place. She said she had seen posters around her hometown encouraging people to vote yes on the amendment. 

“Banning abortion up to six weeks is a public health crisis,” Neira said. “On an actual health perspective, I think it’s important. Second, I just believe that it’s a woman’s choice to be able to control what happens to her body. So I don’t think that the government should be interfering with that.” 

Lila Wolk, a junior at GW from New York, said she voted yes on the Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution — which would protect against discrimination based on pregnancy and reproductive healthcare outcomes — because she wanted people to be free to make decisions about all aspects of their reproductive healthcare, not just abortion, with conservative lawmakers in some states attempting to ban other forms of contraception and IVF procedures. 

“With laws about reproductive justice, people don’t quite understand how broad that is,” Wolk said. “People tend to think that reproductive justice is just about abortion. And what I think these laws are actually doing is they’re enshrining the rights of you to have a child, to not have a child and to parent that child how you want.”

Reproductive rights advocates said amending state constitutions can protect abortion rights regardless of the beliefs of sitting politicians, but ballot language can hinder these efforts. 

Maureen Boyle, a county commissioner and physician in Nebraska who helped organize adding the constitutional amendment to the ballot, said she is worried that voters will be “confused” since there are two abortion initiatives on the ballot — one to protect the right to abortion and one to ban it in nearly all cases — and voters may not know which one to vote for since advertisements for the abortion ban initiative have been unclear as to what the amendment does. Advertisements for the abortion ban have adopted language associated with the pro-choice movement like “protect our rights,” which Boyle said could lead to voters voting for the wrong amendment. 

“I feel like the opposition, as their goal was to confuse the electorate, and I really think that they’re doing a good job of that,” Boyle said “And so, I think that it’s sad that that’s what our country is coming to and that women’s health care is going to be manipulated and jeopardized because of the ability of the other side to confuse and not stand by the merits of their initiative.” 

Nebraska currently has a 12-week abortion ban, which Boyle said has forced women to travel to nearby states like Colorado to get care. She said the requirement to travel can add to the stigma women feel when they require an abortion.

“The hard part is it’s still a tragedy to those patients that are in those situations to know that they have to leave the state,” Boyle said. “Some of them say they feel like criminals, because they have to leave the state to get the care they need in those types of circumstances.”

Julia Steinberg, a professor of family science at the University of Maryland, said amending state constitutions to protect abortion ensures laws can’t change if the party in power changes, even in states that already largely protect the right to abortion like Maryland.

“It’s a pretty supportive state, relatively speaking, for having an abortion, depending on who’s in power,” Steinberg said. “That could change with the current state of affairs. Whereas enshrining this in the Constitution will make it so that this right will exist, regardless of who is in power in the legislature or the governor’s office.”

Steinberg said advocacy for abortion initiatives can help inform voters on what they are actually voting for since they may not know by just reading the amendment. 

“It just educates people on what these ballots are, what they do and what a yes vote on them means versus what a no vote on them means, so that people understand that when you go to vote,” Steinberg said.