With referendums on the subject in ten American states, the November 5 vote could turn out to be a plebiscite for the defense of abortion in the United States. It is not certain, however, that the mobilization around a right that American women believed to be untouchable will benefit the Democrats as much as they hoped. Their candidate, Kamala Harris, who defended the “freedom to choose” one of the main axes of his candidacy, could even indirectly suffer from the divide that the campaign on abortion has accentuated.
In these ten states (Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and New York), the voters are informed, at the same time as the choice of the president and members of Congress, of constitutional amendments to expand or protect access to abortion. Two are among the key states for the presidential election: Arizona and Nevada. Two others are of crucial importance for control of the Senate: Montana and Florida.
The questions are differently worded. In states where abortion is legal beyond the fifteenth week (Colorado, Nevada, Maryland and Montana), it is a question of guaranteeing access or expanding it, by authorizing, for example (Colorado ), the use of public funds for the reimbursement of voluntary terminations of pregnancy (IVG). In the others (Arizona, Missouri, South Dakota and Florida), it is the lifting of current restrictions that is at stake, with concrete consequences for millions of women.
Existential duel
In Nebraska, two texts are in competition. In New York State, “Proposition 1” is part of a broader context: it intends to protect a set of “fundamental rights” including abortion, but the word does not appear in the text.
Also read our June 2023 archive: United States: Which states have banned abortion? In which has its access been extended? The right to abortion state by state
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Polls show that the referendum proposals should be approved in most states, with the exception of very conservative South Dakota, where abortion is completely banned unless the mother's life is in danger. Even in Missouri, whose Assembly is two-thirds controlled by Republicans, “Amendment 3” exceeds 50% approval in the polls. In Florida, “Amendment 4”, which proposes to protect the right to abortion until the viability of the fetus, should reach 50%, but it must obtain 60% of the votes to be adopted, a threshold which has been crossed during similar consultations in California or Vermont, but never in a Republican state.
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