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  • Arizona voters to decide on expanding abortion access months after facing a potential near-total ban

    Arizona voters to decide on expanding abortion access months after facing a potential near-total ban

    PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters are set to decide whether to guarantee the right to abortion in the state constitution — a vote that could cement access after the presidential battleground came close to a near-total ban earlier this year.

    Arizona is one of nine states with abortion on the ballot.

    Abortion-rights advocates are hoping for a win that could expand access beyond the state’s current 15-week limit to the point of fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. Doctors say it’s sometime after 21 weeks, though there’s no defined time frame.

    Advocates also are counting on the measure to drive interest among Democrats to vote the party line up and down the ballot. When Republicans running in tough races address the ballot measure, they generally don’t dissuade voters from supporting it, though some like Senate candidate Kari Lake say they’re personally voting against it. GOP U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, whose battleground congressional district encompasses Tucson, ran an ad saying he rejects “the extremes on abortion.”

    Arizona has been whipsawed by recent legal and legislative battles centered on abortion. In April, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for enforcement of a long-dormant 1864 law that banned nearly all abortions. The Legislature swiftly repealed it.

    In addition to the abortion ballot measure itself, the issue could sway state legislative races and lead to elimination of the voice voters have over retention of state Superior Court judges and Supreme Court justices.

    Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition leading the ballot measure campaign, has far outpaced the opposition campaign, It Goes Too Far, in fundraising. Opponents argue that the measure is too far-reaching because its physical and mental health exemption post-viability is so broad that it effectively legalizes abortion beyond viability. The measure allows post-viability abortions if they are necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the mother.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion-rights supporters prevailed in all seven abortion ballot questions, including in conservative-leaning states.

    Voters in Arizona are divided on abortion. Maddy Pennell, a junior at Arizona State University, said the possibility of a near-total abortion ban made her “depressed” and strengthened her desire to vote for the abortion ballot measure.

    “I feel very strongly about having access to abortion,” she said.

    Kyle Lee, an independent Arizona voter, does not support the abortion ballot measure.

    “All abortion is pretty much, in my opinion, murder from beginning to end,” Lee said.

    The Civil War-era ban also shaped the contours of tight legislative races. State Sen. Shawnna Bolick and state Rep. Matt Gress are among the handful of vulnerable Republican incumbents in competitive districts who crossed party lines to give the repeal vote the final push — a vote that will be tested as both parties vie for control of the narrowly GOP-held state Legislature.

    Both of the Phoenix-area lawmakers were rebuked by some of their Republican colleagues for siding with Democrats. Gress made a motion on the House floor to initiate the repeal of the 1864 law. Bolick, explaining her repeal vote to her Senate colleagues, gave a 20-minute floor speech describing her three difficult pregnancies.

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    While Gress was first elected to his seat in 2022, Bolick is facing voters for the first time. She was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to fill a seat vacancy in 2023. She has not emphasized her role in the repeal vote as she has campaigned, instead playing up traditional conservative issues — one of her signs reads “Bolick Backs the Blue.”

    Another question before voters is whether to move away from retention elections for state Superior Court judges and Supreme Court justices, a measure put on the ballot by Republican legislators hoping to protect two justices who favored allowing the Civil War-era ban to be enforced.

    Under the existing system, voters decide every four to six years whether judges and justices should remain on the bench. The proposed measure would allow the judges and justices to stay on the bench without a popular vote unless one is triggered by felony convictions, crimes involving fraud and dishonesty, personal bankruptcy or mortgage foreclosure.

    Shawnna Bolick’s husband, Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, is one of two conservative justices up for a retention vote. Justice Bolick and Justice Kathryn Hackett King, who were both appointed by former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, sided with the high court’s majority to allow the enforcement of the 1864 near-total ban. Abortion-rights activists have campaigned for their ouster, but if the ballot measure passes they will keep their posts even if they don’t win the retention election.

  • Abortion is on US ballot in 2024 elections

    Abortion is on US ballot in 2024 elections

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in nine states are deciding whether their state constitutions should guarantee a right to abortion, weighing ballot measures that are expected to spur turnout for a range of crucial races.

    Passing certain amendments in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota likely would lead to undoing bans or restrictions that currently block varying levels of abortion access to more than 7 million women of childbearing age who live in those states.

    The future legality and availability of abortion hinges not only on ballot measures, as policies could shift depending on who controls Congress and the presidency. Same with state governments — including legislatures that pursue new laws, state supreme courts that determine the laws’ constitutionality, attorneys general who decide whether to defend them and district attorneys who enforce them.

    If all the abortion rights measures pass, “it’s a sign of how much of a juggernaut support for reproductive rights has become,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California Davis School of Law and an expert on the history of reproductive rights in the U.S.

    “If some of them fail,” she added, “then you’re going to see some conservatives looking for guidance to see what the magic ingredient was that made it possible for conservatives to stem the tide.”

    Voters have been supporting abortion rights

    Abortion rights advocates have prevailed on all seven measures that have appeared since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the nationwide right to abortion. That decision opened the door to bans or restrictions in most GOP-controlled states — and protections of access in most of those controlled by Democrats.

    The abortion rights campaigns have a big fundraising advantage this year. Their opponents’ efforts are focused on portraying the amendments as too extreme rather than abortion as immoral.

    Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more bar abortion in most cases after about six weeks of pregnancy — before women often realize they’re pregnant. Despite the bans, the number of monthly abortions in the U.S. has risen slightly, because of the growing use of abortion pills and organized efforts to help women travel for abortion. Still, advocates say the bans have reduced access, especially for lower-income and minority residents of the states with bans.

    The bans also are part of a key argument in the presidential race. Vice President Kamala Harris calls them “Trump abortion bans,” noting former President Donald Trump’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade. Harris, meanwhile, has portrayed herself as a direct, consistent advocate for reproductive health and rights, including Black maternal health.

    Trump has struggled to thread a divide between his own base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights, leaning on his catch-all response that abortion rights should be left up to individual states.

    His shifting stances on reproductive rights include vowing in October to veto a national abortion ban, just weeks after the presidential debate when he repeatedly declined to say. Trump also has regularly taken credit for appointing three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade.

    Trump’s attempt to find a more cautious stance on abortion echoes the efforts of many Republican congressional candidates as the issue has emerged as a major vulnerability for the GOP. In competitive congressional races from coast to coast, Republicans distanced themselves from more aggressive anti-abortion policies coming from their party and its allies, despite their records on the issue and previous statements opposing abortion rights.

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    The measures could roll back bans in five states

    While the ballot questions have similar aims, each one occupies its own political circumstances.

    There’s an added obstacle to passing protections in reliably Republican Florida: Supporters of the amendment must get at least 60% of the vote.

    Passing it there and rolling back a 6-week ban that took effect in May would be a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with a national profile, who has steered state GOP funds to the cause and whose administration has weighed in, too, with a campaign against the measure, investigators questioning people who signed petitions to add it to the ballot and threats to TV stations that aired one commercial supporting it.

    Nebraska has competing ballot measures. One would allow abortion further into pregnancy. The other would enshrine in the constitution the state’s current law, which bars most abortions after 12 weeks — but would allow for further restrictions.

    In South Dakota, the measure would allow some regulations related to the health of the woman after 12 weeks. Because of that wrinkle, most national abortion-rights groups are not supporting it.

    In some states, notably Missouri, passing amendments may not expand access immediately. Courts would be asked to invalidate the bans; and there could be legal battles over that. Clinics would need to staff up and get licenses. And some restrictions could remain in effect.

    Arizona, a battleground in the presidential election, bans abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    The ballot measure there gained momentum after a state Supreme Court ruling in April found that the state could enforce a strict abortion ban adopted in 1864. Some GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats to repeal the law before it could be enforced.

    The measures would enshrine current access laws elsewhere

    In the Democratic-controlled Colorado and Maryland, the ballot measures would largely put existing policies into the state constitutions, though Colorado’s version could also remove financial barriers to abortion. It would take 55% of the vote to pass there.

    Measures maintaining access also are on the ballot in Montana, where a U.S. Senate race could help determine control of the chamber, and Nevada, a battleground in the presidential election.

    In Nevada, where control of the state government is divided, the ballot measure would have to be passed this year and again in 2026 to take effect.

    New York also has a measure on the ballot that its supporters say would bolster abortion rights. It doesn’t contain the word “abortion” but rather bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

  • Abortion and open primaries are on the ballot in Nevada. What to know about the key 2024 measures

    Abortion and open primaries are on the ballot in Nevada. What to know about the key 2024 measures

    LAS VEGAS (AP) — It’s been more than three decades since Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved a law allowing abortions until 24 weeks of pregnancy. Now they must decide if they want to make it a constitutional right.

    Nevada is one of nine states where abortion rights are on the ballot, as supporters in the state and elsewhere try to strengthen abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that made abortion legal nationwide for 50 years.

    It’s a key issue that could drive voters to the polls in Nevada, a crucial presidential battleground, even if abortion access has been protected by state law since 1990.

    Here’s a closer look at the key ballot measures in Nevada:

    Abortion rights

    The 2024 election is only the first test of the measure seeking to enshrine the right to an abortion until the fetus can survive outside the womb, known as “fetal viability” which doctors say is after 21 weeks, with exceptions to save the mother’s life or protect her health. Voters would again have to approve it in 2026 in order to amend the state constitution.

    It wouldn’t expand current abortion access in the state, but supporters and organizers of the initiative say it adds an extra layer of protection. State laws in Nevada are more vulnerable to change — the current 1990 law could be reversed by another voter referendum — but proposed changes to the state constitution have to pass in two consecutive elections.

    Las Vegas resident Laura Campbell, 36, said she supports the initiative to strengthen Nevada’s abortion access. Without it, Campbell said she isn’t sure she would be alive today.

    At 27 weeks, she said she learned that her pregnancy was nonviable, meaning the fetus couldn’t survive outside her womb. Her doctor took her hand and promised to take care of her.

    “I was able to come out of that healthy and able to get pregnant again,” Campbell said. A year later, she gave birth to her daughter, now 3. “I could have been a tragic story.”

    Opponents say the proposed amendment goes too far because it doesn’t clearly define “fetal viability.”

    “It opens up a huge can of worms,” Davida Rochelle, 68, said.

    Anti-abortion group Nevada Right to Life also said in a recent ad that the initiative is “deceptively worded” because it doesn’t make clear that abortion is already legal in the state.

    Voting process

    Two different measures going before voters could alter the way Nevada residents cast their ballots.

    An initiative to open up primaries and implement ranked choice voting would fundamentally change elections in a key swing state where nonpartisan voters outnumber registered Democrats and Republicans, and where 42% of voters do not belong to one of the major parties. Supporters of the measure say opening up primaries would give a voice to more than 1 million voters in the state who currently do not have a say in the nomination of major-party candidates for Congressional races and statewide office.

    If it passes, all registered voters in Nevada starting in 2026 can vote in primary races for Congress, statewide office and the state Legislature. It would not affect presidential primaries and races for elected office at the local level.

    Under the proposed system, the top five primary candidates, regardless of their political affiliation, would move on to the general election, in which voters would rank by preference up to five candidates. The first candidate to receive more than 50% of the vote would be declared the winner.

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    If none of the candidates immediately win the majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes would then be redistributed to the voter’s next highest ranked candidate. The process would repeat until a winner is declared.

    The citizen-led initiative has faced opposition from both Republican and Democratic party leaders who say ranked choice voting is too confusing.

    Another measure on the ballot would require that voters show photo identification at the polls. It’s the first time the Republican-led measure is going before voters and would have to again pass in 2026.

    Slavery as punishment

    Nevada voters this election could vote to reject slavery or indentured servitude as a criminal punishment, which is still on the books in the state constitution.

    Around 10,000 people are currently imprisoned in Nevada. Some make as little as 35 cents an hour.

    There is no formal opposition against the proposed amendment.

  • Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ends federal abortion rights

    Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ends federal abortion rights

    Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending decades of federal abortion rights

    The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973.

    The court’s controversial but expected ruling gives individual states the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

    Follow live coverage of reaction to abortion decision here

    Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, which is related to a highly restrictive new Mississippi abortion law. The laws will affect tens of millions of people around the country, who may have to cross state lines to seek reproductive health care.

    Other states plan to maintain more liberal rules governing the termination of pregnancies.

    Supporters of abortion rights immediately condemned the ruling, while abortion opponents praised a decision they had long hoped for and worked to ensure. Protesters descended on the Supreme Court on Friday to speak out both for and against a decision that will upend decades of precedent in the U.S.

    Read the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade here

    Abortion opponents celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022.

    Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

    Justice Samuel Alito, as expected, wrote the majority opinion that tossed out Roe as well as a 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

    Alito was joined in that judgment by four other conservatives on the high court. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi abortion restrictions but did not approve of overturning Roe altogether.

    The majority also included three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

    The court’s three liberal justices filed a dissenting opinion to the ruling, which quickly drew protestors to the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

    “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Alito wrote.

    “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito wrote.

    “That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” he added.

    “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote.

    In their scathing joint dissent, the court’s liberal justices wrote, “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

    “The majority would allow States to ban abortion from conception onward because it does not think forced childbirth at all implicates a woman’s rights to equality and freedom,” said the dissent by Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

    “Today’s Court, that is, does not think there is anything of constitutional significance attached to a woman’s control of her body and the path of her life,” it said. “A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.”

    In a concurring opinion with the majority ruling, the conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that in light of the rationale for overturning Roe, the Supreme Court should reconsider its rulings in three other past cases which established a right to use birth control, and which said there is a constitutional right for gay people to have sex and marry one another.

    Friday’s bombshell decision came a day after the Supreme Court in another controversial ruling invalidated a century-old New York law that had made it very difficult for people to obtain a license to carry a gun outside of their homes.

    Anti-abortion protestors march in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the court considers overturning Roe v. Wade on June 13, 2022, in Washington, DC.

    Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images

    The case that triggered Roe’s demise, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is related to a Mississippi law that banned nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    Dobbs was by far the most significant and controversial dispute of the court’s term.

    It also posed the most serious threat to abortion rights since Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe.

    Dobbs deepened partisan divisions in a period of already intense political tribalism.

    The early May leak of a draft of the majority opinion, which completely overturned Roe, sent shockwaves across the country and galvanized activists on both sides of the debate. It also cast a pall over the nation’s highest court, which immediately opened an investigation to find the source of the leak.

    The publication of the court’s draft opinion, written by Alito, sparked protests from abortion-rights supporters, who were outraged and fearful about how the decision will impact both patients and providers as 22 states gear up to restrict abortions or ban them outright.

    The leaked opinion marked a major victory for conservatives and anti-abortion advocates who had worked for decades to undermine Roe and Casey, which the majority of Americans support keeping in place.

    But Republican lawmakers in Washington, who are hoping to win big in the November midterm elections, initially focused more on the leak itself than on what it revealed. They also decried the protests that formed outside the homes of some conservative justices, accusing activists of trying to intimidate the court.

    The unprecedented leak of Alito’s draft opinion blew a hole in the cloak of secrecy normally shrouding the court’s internal affairs. It drew harsh scrutiny from the court’s critics, many of whom were already concerned about the politicization of the country’s most powerful deliberative body, where justices are appointed for life.

    Roberts vowed that the work of the court “will not be affected in any way” by the leak, which he described as a “betrayal” intended to “undermine the integrity of our operations.”

    The leak had clearly had an impact, however. Tall fencing was set up around the court building afterward, and Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the U.S. Marshals Service to “help ensure the Justices’ safety.”

  • Florida will vote on marijuana, abortion in an election that will test GOP’s dominance

    Florida will vote on marijuana, abortion in an election that will test GOP’s dominance

    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s election will test whether the state maintains its new reputation as a Republican stronghold, or whether Democrats make some gains by tapping into the support for abortion and marijuana ballot questions and the new energy Vice President Kamala Harris brings to the race.

    Gone are the days when Florida was looked at as the biggest prize among swing states. After former President Barack Obama won Florida twice, former President Donald Trump carried the state by a whisker in 2016 and then by a much larger share in 2020. In 2022, Republicans took all five statewide seats on the ballot by landslide margins.

    Still, there is a lot of buzz over constitutional amendments that could protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana, with both sides of each issue pumping millions of dollars into advertising. Democrats support the ballot measures and hope they boost turnout to give them at least a chance stopping Trump’s third straight Florida victory and keeping U.S. Sen. Rick Scott from winning a second term.

    The only statewide office on the ballot is Scott’s Senate seat. Scott is being challenged by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Murcarsel-Powell in a race that’s been overshadowed by the presidential election and the abortion and marijuana ballot questions.

    Even if Trump and Scott are victorious in Florida, Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said the election will be a huge success if the amendments pass and the party flips enough legislative seats to take away the Republicans’ supermajority.

    “Look where we were in of November 2022. We had the largest loss that Florida Democrats have ever experienced,” Fried said. “Nobody anticipated that we would even have this conversation today, that the polls are showing that we are tight, that there was even a possibility that Florida would be in play. Everybody counted us out.”

    Still, it’s an uphill climb. The amendments need support from at least 60% of voters, and there’s enough money being spent against them that it could create doubts among voters who normally support the issues, said Florida-based Republican political strategist Jamie Miller.

    “As a general rule, amendments pass if there’s no real effort against them and they fail when there are real efforts against them,” Miller said.

    Miller also believes Democrats are motivated to vote against the Republicans they don’t like rather than be inspired by their own candidates.

    “I see excitement against Donald Trump and against Rick Scott, but that as a general rule in the state the size of Florida is not enough to get you across the line,” he said.

    Scott served two terms as governor, winning each with less than 50% of the vote. In 2018, he defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in a race decided by 0.2 percentage points. But Florida politics changed. The last time Scott was on the ballot, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the state. Republicans now have a million-voter advantage.

    Scott, one of the richest members of Congress, pumped millions of dollars of his own money into the race, as he has with his previous three elections. Far outspent, and with little money coming in from national Democrats until the last few weeks of the race, Murcarsel-Powell struggled to gain attention.

    While Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wasn’t on the ballot, he spent time campaigning against the abortion rights and marijuana amendments. DeSantis even used state agencies to fight the amendment, with the Agency for Health Care Administration set up a website and aired TV ads providing information on abortion and the Department of Health tried to stop television stations from airing a pro-amendment ad.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    The abortion amendment would protect the rights of women to have an abortion up to the point the fetus can survive outside the womb. Florida now bans abortion six weeks after conception, when many women don’t realize they are pregnant.

    Voters overwhelming approved medical marijuana in 2016. This year they’re being asked to legalize recreational marijuana. The marijuana industry has spent tens of millions of dollars on the campaign, while DeSantis has raised money against it and criticized it often during official events.

    Very few, if any, of Florida’s 28 congressional seats are competitive, but the state will elect at least one new member to Congress. Former Senate President Mike Haridopolos is favored to replace retiring Republican Rep. Bill Posey. He’s being challenged by Democrat Sandy Kennedy in a strong Republican district.

    Republicans will maintain firm control of the Legislature. Democrats will consider it a major victory if they flip enough seats to remove the supermajority GOP hold in the House and Senate.

    One of the legislative seats being heavily targeted is held by Republican Sen. Corey Simon, a former Florida State and NFL football star who is being challenged by nationally known civil rights lawyer Daryl Parks, who is the former partner of civil rights lawyer Ben Crump.

  • What potential Harris administration could do to protect abortion access

    What potential Harris administration could do to protect abortion access

    Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, Oct. 25, 2024.

    Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

    Vice President Kamala Harris has made abortion a central issue in her bid for the White House, pledging that if elected she will expand and protect women’s ability to terminate a pregnancy.

    The vice president’s promises come as the country still reels from the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. for half a century. Since that ruling, 13 states have completely banned abortions.

    “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to simply agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” Harris said during her closing remarks Tuesday evening at the Ellipse lawn in Washington. In response, the crowd of more than 60,000 supporters cheered loudly.

    But what could Harris actually do to support abortion access in a post-Roe landscape? The question is central to a key dynamic underway in the presidential election: a partisan gender divide with few precedents in modern politics.

    An October NBC News poll showed a gender gap of 30 percentage points between Harris and Republican Donald Trump, with male voters breaking for Trump by 16% and female voters for Harris by 14%.

    This split between male and female voters is inextricably tied to the issue of abortion. According to the final New York Times election poll, abortion and the economy were tied among female likely voters as their top issue. Among all registered voters, men and women, only the economy ranked higher than abortion in its impact on voter choices.

    If Harris were elected president, however, she would likely find it very difficult to restore the right to an abortion nationwide, said Alina Salganicoff, a senior vice president and the director of the Women’s Health Policy Program at nonprofit health research organization KFF.

    Even so, she said, a Harris administration could increase the availability of medication abortions and, crucially, it could fight Republican and activist attempts to further limit reproductive rights.

    Restoring Roe-era protections is unlikely

    Restoring a right to abortion across the U.S. would be challenging, if not impossible, experts say. It would require a significant change in the composition of the Supreme Court or an act of Congress.

    “Both are hard to imagine in the near future,” Salganicoff said.

    Harris has said she would sign a bill from Congress reestablishing abortion rights, but it’s unlikely such legislation would reach the Senate’s current 60-vote threshold. A bill in May 2022 that would effectively codify a right to abortion failed in the Senate, with a 49-51 vote. All Republicans opposed the measure.

    Anti-abortion demonstrators listen to President Donald Trump as he speaks at the 47th annual “March for Life” in Washington, D.C., Jan. 24, 2020.

    Olivier Douliery | Afp | Getty Images

    Some Democratic lawmakers, including Harris, have voiced support for eliminating the filibuster in the Senate, which would allow bills to pass with a simple majority instead of the 60 votes currently required to end debate over legislation and advance it in the 100-member Senate.

    “I’ve been very clear, I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom,” Harris said in September during an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.

    It’s uncertain Democrats will secure even a simple majority in the Senate in the Nov. 5 election, which would be necessary to undo the filibuster, said Mary Ziegler, a legal historian of the U.S. abortion debate. However, that could change in the 2026 midterm elections, Ziegler said.

    Even with enough votes, some Democrats may worry that lowering the Senate voting threshold could backfire on them and abortion access, she said.

    “Democrats historically have been anxious about that because then they don’t have tools to defeat a new abortion ban if Republicans were to pass one,” Ziegler said.

    Other ways of protecting abortion in the U.S.

    Harris supports a repeal of the Hyde Amendment, a congressional rider that limits federal spending on abortions to cases of rape, incest or life-threatening pregnancies. As a result of the restriction, women on Medicaid can be forced to pay out-of-pocket for an abortion, which can cost $600 or more in some cases. The provision affects low-income women and women of color the most, experts say.

    “Harris has been really vocal about supporting the repeal of the Hyde Amendment,” Ziegler said.

    But once again, “she’d need Congress” to do so, Ziegler said. “If Democrats don’t control Congress, it’s going to be hard.”

    Still, she added, “Having a president pushing for it would be significant.”

    Abortion rights campaigners and anti-abortion demonstrators hold signs during the first “March for Life” since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, in Washington, Jan. 20, 2023.

    Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

    Harris could also pursue several paths to make medication abortions more available. In 2023, medication abortions accounted for 63% of abortions in the U.S., a rise from 53% in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

    “There are likely many reasons for the increase, including the relatively recent availability of abortion medication through telehealth,” Salganicoff at KFF said, adding that Harris could look for more ways to make the pills accessible.

    A Harris administration would not enforce the Comstock Act, a controversial federal law passed in 1873 that bans the mailing of obscene matter. In the conservative governing blueprint Project 2025, which former President Donald Trump has tried to disavow, the authors call for using the Victorian-era law as another kind of abortion ban, prohibiting using the mail to distribute abortion pills and other abortion-related materials.

    “They’re arguing that if Planned Parenthood orders a scalpel from a medical supply company, that’s a federal crime,” Ziegler said.

    Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s Madison South Health Center.

    Kevin Wang | AP

    Regardless of who wins the White House, an anti-abortion group could bring a case to the Supreme Court and persuade the justices that the Comstock Act should be applied as a ban on mailing abortion materials, Ziegler said.

    But enforcement of that ruling would be left to the U.S. Department of Justice, she said, and that would be another area where Harris could make a difference.

    “A Harris administration wouldn’t be able to change what the Supreme Court is saying, but it could de-prioritize those prosecutions,” Ziegler said. “The DOJ always has limited resources, and prioritizes some prosecutions over others.”

    Harris could also oppose efforts by Republicans and anti-abortion groups to invalidate the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, which is used to terminate pregnancies, experts said.

    Her administration would also likely fight other legal challenges to further restrict abortions, such as state laws that ban emergency abortion care for patients when their health is in jeopardy. The Biden administration has argued that depriving people of this care violates the EMTALA, or the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. That federal law requires hospitals to offer health-preserving treatment to those in need who come in to their emergency rooms.

    “Several states with abortion bans only have a life exception, not one for health,” Salganicoff said.

    Abortion ballot measures at stake

    People cast their in-person early ballots for the 2024 general election at the Northwest Activities Center in Detroit, Oct. 29, 2024.

    Jeff Kowalsky | AFP | Getty Images

    There are ballot measures in 10 states this election that would increase abortion access. In Arizona, Florida, Missouri and South Dakota, the amendments would reverse existing abortion laws and essentially protect abortion rights until fetal viability, with some exceptions after that point.

    The measures that pass stand a better chance of surviving if Harris wins than Trump, Ziegler said.

    “A Harris administration would mean those protections could stay in place,” she said. “That would be less clear if Trump is president.”

    Trump takes credit for the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, and embraces his role in picking the three conservative justices who voted against it. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would not sign a national abortion ban. However, some experts are skeptical of that promise, given the former president’s record. And federal policy would likely supersede any passed ballot measures, Ziegler said.

    “Conserving access that already exists would be one of the less glamorous but important things” that Harris could do, Ziegler said.

    Harris’ biggest impact on abortion access, should she win, would be to prevent the deterioration of rights that is likely under another Trump administration, Salganicoff said.

    “Your question is: ‘What could Harris do?’” she said. “The question is: What could an administration do that does not believe that abortion access should be protected? They can do so much more to dismantle access than today.”