UPDATE, January 16, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect developments in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Abortion wins elections. We saw it last year when Ohio voters enshrined abortion rights into the state constitution, and in 2022 when Kansas, Kentucky, and Michigan voters rejected abortion restrictions and affirmed expanded protections.

Now, advocates and opponents alike are pushing more abortion-related measures onto upcoming ballots. Rewire News Group will be tracking abortion ballot initiatives and updating this list as groups gather signatures for their petitions and secure their place in this year’s elections.

The state does not currently have a ballot initiative in the upcoming election cycle. Alabama has a total abortion ban with limited exceptions.

Alaska does not currently have a ballot initiative in the upcoming election cycle. The state supreme court has ruled multiple times that abortion is constitutionally protected, and pregnant people can receive abortion care at any point during pregnancy.

Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of pro-choice groups including the ACLU of Arizona, Healthcare Rising Arizona, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, and more, is gathering signatures to put a constitutional amendment affirming the right to abortion on the November 2024 ballot. As of January 12, advocates had collected more than 250,000 of the 383,923 signatures needed by July 3 to get the measure on the ballot. The amendment would allow for abortion care up until the point of fetal viability, somewhere between 24 and 26 weeks. Abortion is currently banned at 15 weeks.

After having its proposed abortion access ballot language rejected by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin for a second time on January 4, advocates submitted a third draft of the measure addressing the last of Griffin’s concerns on January 8.

On November 28, 2023, Griffin first rejected the title for a proposed ballot measure—dubbed the Arkansas Reproductive Healthcare Amendment that aimed to legalize abortion access up to 18 weeks. In his rejection, Griffin cited confusion over the ballot language’s use of the words like “access” and “health,” and said the ballot’s title “is tinged with partisan coloring and misleading.”

The ballot question committee behind the initiative, Arkansans for Limited Government (organized by the nonprofit For AR People), said it will propose a revised ballot measure to the attorney general’s office.

The Natural State has a total abortion ban with limited exceptions.

The state does not currently have a ballot initiative in the upcoming election cycle. In 2022, Californians voted to amend the state constitution to include the right to abortion. Abortion is banned at the point of viability.

The Colorado Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Coalition announced in late August its intent to get a ballot measure to codify abortion rights into the state constitution. The coalition submitted two measures—one to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and another to allow abortion to be covered by state and local government employees’ health insurance—for title consideration. According to Ballotpedia, the measure that would constitutionally protect abortion was approved for petition circulation in October, and the measure that would protect health-care insurance coverage of abortion for government employees had its title set by the state Title Board. Colorado Newsline reported that the coalition pushing the initiatives will only pursue one of the two measures.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion group Colorado Life Initiative is pushing abortion ban initiatives, though a similar effort by the group was defeated in 2022. Titles were set for two measures that would ban abortion, establish fetal “personhood,” and provide enforcement mechanisms. Abortion in Colorado is currently legal throughout pregnancy.

Connecticut does not currently have a ballot initiative in the upcoming election cycle. In 2022, Connecticut lawmakers passed laws to protect patients traveling to the state and abortion care providers, as well as legislation allowing physician assistants, advanced practice registered nurses, and nurse midwives to provide procedural abortions. Abortion is banned at the point of viability.

The state does not currently have a ballot initiative in the upcoming election cycle. Abortion is banned after the point of viability.

Floridians Protecting Freedom, a coalition of reproductive rights organizations and citizens, has surpassed the number of statewide petition signatures needed to put the “Amendment to Limit Government Interference With Abortion” on the 2024........

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