HELENA, Mont. — Voters will decide in November whether to protect abortion rights in Montana’s constitution. The state on Tuesday became the eighth to put the issue before voters this fall.
The Montana Secretary of State’s office has certified that the general election ballot will include the abortion rights initiative. All but one state is seeking to amend its constitutions.
The Montana measure seeks to uphold a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that the constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion by a doctor of the patient’s choice, while Republican lawmakers have sought to overturn the ruling, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade Overturned in 2022, leaving the abortion issue up to the states.
“Since Roe was overturned, anti-abortion politicians have used every trick in the book to strip away our freedoms and ban abortion altogether,” Martha Fuller, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Montana, said in a statement. “During that time, we have worked together to bring this issue to the attention of voters.”
Republican lawmakers in Montana passed a law in 2023 that says the right to privacy does not protect the right to abortion. The law has not yet been challenged in court.
Opponents of the initiative have made several attempts to keep it off the ballot, while proponents have taken several issues to court.
Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen initially ruled that the proposed ballot measure was legally insufficient. After the Montana Supreme Court rejected him, Knudsen rewrote the ballot text to say that the proposed amendment would “allow post-viability abortions up until birth,” eliminate “the state’s compelling interest in preserving prenatal life” and potentially “increase the number of taxpayer-funded abortions.”
The Supreme Court eventually drafted its own initiative texts for the petitions that were used to gather signatures. According to the signature gatherers, some people tried to intimidate voters into not signing.
The secretary of state’s office also changed the rules to say that the signatures of inactive voters would not count, reversing nearly 30 years of precedent. The office made computer changes to reject the signatures of inactive voters after they had already been collected and after counties had begun verifying some of them.
Supporters had to go to court again and were given an orderand additional time, for counties to verify the signatures of inactive voters. Inactive voters are people who have filled out a universal change of address form but have not updated their address on their voter registration. If counties have sent mail to that address twice without a response, voters are placed on an inactive list.
Supporters ended up with more than 81,000 signatures, about 10.5% of registered voters. The campaign needed just over 60,000 signatures and qualified 40 or more of the 100 state House districts by collecting signatures from at least 10% of the number of people who voted for governor in that district in 2020. The initiative qualified in 59 districts.
Republican lawmakers have made several attempts to challenge the state Supreme Court’s 1999 ruling, including asking the high court to overturn it. The Republican-controlled Legislature has also passed several bills in 2021 and 2023 to restrict abortion access, including one that says the constitutional right to privacy does not protect abortion rights.
Courts have blocked several lawssuch as a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a ban on prescribing medication abortions through telehealth services, a 24-hour waiting period for medication abortions, and an ultrasound requirement — all citing the 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling.
Last week, the state Supreme Court ruled that minors in Montana no parental consent required to have an abortion, reversing a 2013 law.
Since Roe was repealed, seven states have put questions on abortion to voters: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. In all of them, pro-abortion advocates won.
In 2022, Montana voters will a referendum rejected That would have allowed criminal charges for health care providers who fail to take “all medically appropriate and reasonable measures to save the life” of a live-born baby, including after an attempted abortion. Health care professionals and other opponents argued that forcing doctors to attempt treatment could deprive parents of valuable time with babies born with incurable medical problems.
