Associated Press
The Supreme Court’s June ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and left the question of abortion rights up to the states has produced ballot questions in a handful of states this fall.
Three states are asking voters some variation of whether they want to establish a right to abortion, while a single state is asking if its constitution should be changed to say there is no such right to abortion or for government funding.
Kansas voters resoundingly rejected a ballot measure that would have permitted lawmakers to tighten abortion laws or outlaw the procedure outright in August — the first such test since the high court’s ruling.
Let’s take a closer look at what voters will be deciding when voting concludes Nov. 8:
What questions are on the ballot and where?
California, Michigan and Vermont are all considering questions that would amend their state constitutions to establish some form of a right to abortion.
Kentucky is asking voters whether to amend the state constitution to say it doesn’t protect the right to an abortion.
Montana is asking voters whether to require medical care and treatment for infants born alive after an attempted abortion.
Why these questions and why now?
The ballot measures come in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t confer a right to abortion and “the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott suggested in a statement this summer that the question had taken on new urgency since the court’s ruling.
“It is more important than ever to make sure the women in our state have the right to make their own decisions about their health, bodies, and their futures,” he said.
Kentucky has moved to tighten restrictions to abortion since the GOP took control of the Legislature in 2016, and Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed the legislation referring the question to voters before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this summer overturning Roe vs. Wade.
Kentucky’s Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case over the state’s near total abortion ban after the November election, but has kept that prohibition in effect while the case is pending.
Abortion is currently legal in Vermont, with no limit on when during a pregnancy it can be carried out. California and Michigan permit abortions before viability, usually defined as around 24 weeks. Montana restricts abortions after viability as well, but a court has put a hold on a measure that would bar the procedure after 20 weeks pending litigation.
What is the status of abortion in states currently?
State legislatures and courts have shifted the status of abortion laws across the United States.
Bans are in place at all states of pregnancy in a dozen states.
In Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions though there’s dispute over whether a ban is in effect.
In Georgia, abortion is banned at the detection of cardiac activity — generally around six weeks and before women often know they’re pregnant.
Seven states, including the District of Columbia, don’t restrict abortion by gestational range at all.
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Republished with permission from The Associated Press.
5 comments
The Real Tom
October 22, 2022 at 12:34 pm
Tom legend here.
These conservative nitwits and lunatics are coming for everyone’s ass. Vote BLUE for Christ sakes!!! Vote for VAL DEMINGS at least!!!
marylou
October 22, 2022 at 2:19 pm
Anti-abortionists are hiding: theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/18/pregnancy-weeks-abortion-tissue?
Shelby
October 22, 2022 at 5:03 pm
These photos are INCREDIBLY misleading. And what comes out after varying types of abortion are completely different than what the embryo looks like inside the womb still in development.
They clearly state these are photos of “tissue” and the “gestational sac” which is not the embryo, but the source of nutrition/ energy in the first few weeks of embryonic development…
I PERSONALLY just had an ultrasound at “10 weeks” so 8 weeks of development or “post- conception,” and the images on screen are of a forming, human-esque shape, albeit quite small! But undeniably, life.
I won’t deny that both sides use propaganda, but these photos in particular are 100% misleading, why, to make people feel better about getting an abortion? At least take full responsibility for your decision. It is not a clump of tissue, it’s a tiny developing pre-fetus, pre- baby embryo, not just a gestational sac as they are picturing WHILE in the womb in development, and yes as early as 6 weeks, 8 weeks, etc….
A quick search found a direct counter to this article…
https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/19/guardian-misleading-abortion-photos-first-trimester/
marylou
October 23, 2022 at 5:41 pm
Maybe more will be known soon. Right now, the doctors involved are saying that the photos are accurate, and that they include everything from the abortion procedures. From the article: “includes the nascent embryo, which is not easily discernible to the naked eye”. “The embryo wasn’t rinsed away from the sac,” Fleischman clarified. “I did not remove anything.”
Other doctors interviewed agree: “Sometimes you can see the embryo with your eye around eight weeks, but more often after nine or 10 weeks,” —-Dr. Jennifer Kerns of the University of California at San Francisco
“The fetus itself at these early gestational images is not something you’re going to see with the naked eye,” saying she performs procedures “up to 10 weeks at this point, so I can tell you, you don’t see anything then.” — Dr. Alexis Melnick, a reproductive endocrinologist at Weill Cornell in New York City
A jellyfish floating in the ocean looks much different from one lying on the beach. Maybe that explains ultrasound images versus petri dish photos??
The doctors don’t seem to be denying “life”. They are showing that the posters of 3 month old infants being waved around by anti-abortionists are not an accurate depiction of what is removed from a woman’s uterus during an abortion procedure. Many people have been mislead into believing that a tiny, fully developed “pre-born baby” is living inside a woman’s body, just waiting to gain enough weight to be born. The photos show that this not true.
I have not heard anyone deny that an embryo has a very good chance of developing into an infant if a pregnancy continues, just as an egg has the potential to become a chicken, and an acorn can develop into a tree given the right environment. But to call an embryo a baby is as ridiculous as saying you’d like bacon and two fried chickens for breakfast.
It’s not about making “people feel better about getting an abortion” or not taking “responsibility”. It’s about women seeing what is actually inside their uterus during the first two months of pregnancy and deciding how they feel about it, rather than choosing what’s right for themelves based on someone else’s opinion. Abortion is taking responsibility.
I don’t think the appearance or what anyone else thinks/believes about the embryo/fetus matters. It’s entirely the woman’s right to control her own body. Anything less, she is being treated as livestock. But I do hope someone who knows what’s going on will explain it to the rest of us.
Linwood Wright
October 23, 2022 at 12:22 am
The states that want to have a population boom of poor minorities over the coming decade will be the ones that will ban abortion. That will be an interesting time. Complete social upheaval, possibly even revolution will be on the horizon.
Wealthy and well-educated folks will always have access to contraception, but when you force a lot of underprivileged people to give birth to babies they can’t afford? Yikes.
This country might see an actual violent working-class revolution in our lifetime. Might look at leaving the country and setting up citizenship elsewhere. It’s gonna be a shiatshow here.
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