Based on false claims that the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs’ ruling in 2022 threatened to make women’s right to choose to have an abortion illegal nationwide, Democrats put initiatives on the ballot in 10 states this year to “enshrine” abortion rights in state constitutions. They passed in seven states — Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York — and failed in three others — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota.
Similar measures passed in 2022 in California, Michigan and Vermont and in 2023 in Ohio.
While the fight for decriminalization of abortion is part of the broader battle for the rights of women and all working people, moves to “enshrine” it in state constitutions is an obstacle to advancing this fight. It closes down room for needed debate to win more widespread support.
“Our starting point is that there can be no road to women’s liberation without dealing with the broader social crises bearing down on the families of working-class women,” Socialist Workers Party leader Mary-Alice Waters said at the party’s national conference in 2022. “And addressing the challenges and responsibilities that fall heavily on women as the bearers of new life.”
Liberals falsely claim that abortion is the central issue to resolve the crisis facing women. Not only is this false, it ignores the fact it involves the potential for human life. Terminating a pregnancy should only be an option when all other things fail.
We challenge those “who cloak their assaults on women’s right under a pro-life mantle,” Waters said. “The working-class party that fights for the liberation of humanity is a party of life. We must take back that banner as ours.”
“Enshrining” abortion in state constitutions is an effort to foreclose the ability of working people to discuss and debate these questions, get greater clarity and prepare to move forward more united.
The votes on these referenda reflect the divided sentiments on the issue, and show the need for further clarification.
In Nebraska, for example, there were two such measures on the ballot — one to “enshrine” the right to abortion and another that set limits on decriminalization. Nebraska Initiative 434, which amends the state Constitution to bar abortion in the second or third trimester, except in cases of medical emergency or for pregnancies resulting from incest or sexual assault, passed. Initiative 439, which proposed “enshrining” abortion until fetal viability, failed.
In New York, the initiative that passed — Proposition One — doesn’t even mention the words “abortion” or “women.” The actual wording of the amendment was not on the ballot. Its Democratic Party endorsers listed it as the “Equal Rights Amendment.” But this is a total cover-up from what this proposed amendment was all about.
It added an extensive list of new categories for “protective status” in the state Constitution — “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability” and “sex,” which included “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”
In a number of the states that enshrined abortion rights in their constitutions, including New York, Maryland and Colorado, state laws already exist protecting women’s right to choose to have an abortion. In New York, abortion was decriminalized in 1970, three years before the Roe v. Wade ruling.