Polls project some pro-abortion victories

Recent polling suggests that pro-abortion measures will pass in at least half of the 10 states where they are on ballots this week.

According to surveys in Maryland, New York, and Nevada, ballot measures in those states have the support of at least 65 percent of voters. Even in Missouri and Arizona, support is past the 50 percent threshold needed for the amendments to pass.

All 10 of the measures differ in their wording, but the groups fighting for the amendments say they are designed to restore abortion access or protect it from government interference.

Meanwhile, some of the “vote no” campaigns say the polls don’t accurately represent voters’ views on the many issues wrapped up in the broad language of the amendments. Many of the leading groups behind the campaigns—largely headed by pro-lifers—have tried to take the focus off of the abortion issue. They say most voters oppose the measures when they learn the amendments would affect areas such as parental consent for minors to receive abortions and so-called transgender surgeries. The challenge is getting that message out.

In Arizona, support for the pro-abortion ballot measure is polling just under 60 percent. A New York Times poll in September found that 58 percent of respondents said “yes” when asked, “Would you vote yes or no on Arizona Proposition 139, a constitutional amendment that would provide a fundamental right to abortion up until fetal viability, or about the 24th week of pregnancy?” Cindy Dahlgren, communications director for It Goes Too Far, the campaign against the amendment, contests those results because of how the researchers phrased the question. “That’s not what Prop. 139 does,” she said.

The amendment in Arizona would establish “a fundamental right to abortion” that the state could not restrict before fetal viability or when necessary to protect “the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.” Because of the amendment’s broad health exception—a common feature opponents in other states’ ballot measures—Dahlgren says the amendment will enable abortions after 24 weeks “for virtually any reason.” It also would endanger the state’s existing health and safety regulations on the abortion industry, allow mid-level providers who are not medical doctors to perform abortions, and permit minors to abort their babies without parental involvement. That last concern stems from the fact that the language does not limit the abortion right to adults, meaning courts could rule that laws requiring parental consent or notification infringe on a minor’s right to an abortion.

Parental involvement has arisen as a key concern in the nine other states with abortion amendments on the ballot. For opponents of the New York, Maryland, and Missouri amendments, though, the concern is not just that parents will be forced out of their daughters’ abortion decisions but that they’ll also be kept in the dark about their children’s decisions to undergo surgery to attempt to change their sex characteristics. Unlike the other states’, the Maryland and Missouri amendments would establish a more general “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” for every “person”—a term not restricted to a certain age. New York’s amendment would prohibit discrimination against any “person” based on categories including “pregnancy outcomes” and “reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

“When people are asked about abortion rights … they say ‘yes’ on that, ‘we agree with abortion rights,’” said Deborah Brocato, chair for the “vote no” campaign Health Not Harm MD, referring to Maryland voters. Abortion is already legal in Maryland until viability and even after that for broad health reasons. Recent polls have shown 69 percent of voters support that state’s proposed amendment. “But I didn’t see any question that asked about parental rights,” she added. “So maybe if they had asked [voters], ‘Do you think children should be allowed to obtain sex change surgeries without parental consent?’ I think they would have gotten nearly 100 percent of ‘absolutely not.’”

But abortion access has become the central focus of the groups promoting the amendments. Brocato said she has encountered people who thought a vote against the amendment to establish a right to “reproductive freedom” would mean a vote for making abortion illegal. She told them a “no” vote would change nothing in the state. Abortion will still be legal there whether or not the amendment passes.

“There’s no reason to talk about abortion when voting ‘no’ changes nothing about abortion in Maryland,” said Brocato, noting that a focus on abortion only hurts the efforts to defeat the amendment by fueling the fears of an abortion ban among abortion supporters. The goal, she said, should be to find “common ground” with as many voters as possible. “And the common ground issue for people … no matter their party affiliation or ideology, is parental rights,” Brocato said. “That is something we can all agree on.”

In Nevada, communications director Krystal Minera-Alvis for Nevada Right to Life said pro-abortion groups have been spreading a message that pro-life groups are trying to ban abortion in the state. “And we have had to state over and over again, we’re not doing anything,” said Minera-Alvis. “We’re literally saying, leave the law where it’s at right now.” Abortion is already legal in Nevada until 24 weeks of pregnancy for any reason and after that under a broad health exception. But she said many Nevadans don’t even know that.

Dahlgren in Arizona said pro-abortion groups have similarly used voter fears of a recently repealed state law protecting unborn babies from abortion throughout pregnancy to “manipulate and scare” voters. “We have been trying to make sure that voters are not confused and that they understand that … the law has been settled, and whether you support it or not, abortion is legal here in Arizona up to 15 weeks,” she said.

Most of the campaigns told WORLD that, when even self-identified “pro-choice” voters hear the concerns about other issues such as parental rights, they join in the opposition to the amendments. Stephanie Bell, a spokeswoman for Missouri Stands with Women, said the coalition against the state’s amendment started out with pro-life leaders and religious individuals. It has since grown to include progressives as voters learn about the broader concerns about the amendment. But a September poll still found that 58 percent of Missouri voters support the “reproductive freedom” measure.

Ayesha Kreutz, campaign manager for the Coalition to Protect Kids in New York, said groups including Gays Against Groomers New York and Independent Women’s Voice have partnered with her campaign against that state’s amendment. They share concerns that the amendment would give men access to women’s athletic teams and spaces such as locker rooms and bathrooms.

“If we’re able to educate and get the message out, I do not think there would be a lot of people that would vote for this,” said Kreutz. But the budget of the Coalition to Protect Kids is small, Kreutz said. According to an online New York State Board of Elections database, they have raised less than $600,000, just a fraction of the more than $4 million the “vote yes” campaign has raised. While Kreutz said her group would like to be able to target the whole state of New York with its TV commercials, limited funds restrict them to showing the ads in strategic areas.

Brocato in Maryland said she and other volunteers have been handing out information about the amendment’s dangers to voters coming to early voting locations—and they’ve talked to people who have decided to vote “no” because of their guidance. “But, of course, we don’t have people everywhere, all over,” Brocato said. “We have as many people as we can.”

Outside of New York, the pro-abortion campaigns are outspending their opponents in most of the other states. According to an October analysis of funding data from the Associated Press, pro-abortion groups in those other nine states have outraised the “vote no” campaigns—in most states, by millions of dollars—in every state but Nebraska and South Dakota. Polls in those two states suggest a majority of voters do not support the proposed amendments.

Many of the “vote no” campaigns say the actual language of the amendments themselves and the text that appears on ballots do nothing to help voters understand the broad implications of the measures. “It’s biased,” said Dahlgren of the ballot language in Arizona. She noted that the summary does not describe the broader implications of the amendment. It says a “no” vote would allow the state to ban abortion in the future. “That’s so leading,” said Dahlgren. “That’s true, but what’s also true is that in the future, lawmakers could expand abortion” even if the pro-abortion amendment doesn’t pass, she said.

In addition to Nebraska and South Dakota, polls suggest that the amendment in Florida that would establish a right to abortion there also doesn’t have the support needed to pass. John Stemberger is president of Liberty Counsel Action and head of the grassroots campaign against the amendment. He said that the “vote no” campaign in the state has an edge due to multiple factors, including support from Gov. Ron DeSantis, unified messaging in the state, and the high, 60 percent threshold required for an amendment to pass. That’s even though pro-life groups have only raised $10 million to the pro-abortion groups’ more than $75 million. But Stemberger said they have an even greater edge compared to other states because of a “financial impact statement” that will appear on the ballot. That paragraph explains the possibility of the amendment invalidating parental consent laws and potentially requiring taxpayer funding of abortions. “That’s huge to educate the average voter as to what in the world this thing is going to do,” Stemberger said.

Similar to other states, the focus of the campaign against the amendment in Florida was to appeal to people’s concerns about parental rights, late-term abortions, and taxpayer funding of abortions. “The strategy of the campaign was not to change people’s minds about abortion, per se, more than it was [to] help them understand, using their existing values, why this is a bad amendment,” Stemberger said.

“The goal is to defeat the amendment. That’s the goal,” he said. Even in the red state of Florida, Stemberger said Floridians hold a diversity of views on the abortion issue, with some leaning conservative and some leaning liberal. He said he understands the desire among some pro-lifers to use these amendments as an opportunity to teach people that abortion is wrong. But it’s a risky time to do that, given the variety of views in the state. “If the education backfires and you’re offending people, then you’re not really helping people defeat the amendment," he said.