Voters in the US facing abortion questions on the ballot this year came from states with a wide range of different laws surrounding abortion.
The questions they were asked to decide also varied, though most initiatives proposed to establish a state right to abortion until foetal viability – about the 24th week of pregnancy.
In previous election cycles, campaigns to restore or protect abortion access by using state-level ballot propositions had met with success, including in reliably conservative states such as Kansas.
But the results from this election largely cemented the reality that women in the US face widely different access to abortion depending on where they live.
Voters in Nebraska and South Dakota rejected measures that would have expanded access, while in Maryland and Colorado, where abortion is currently legal, voters approved measures to enshrine a right to the procedure in the state constitutions.
In Colorado’s case, the amendment will also expand access, allowing abortion to be covered under government health insurance plans.
In Montana and Nevada, where abortion is currently legal until about viability, voters approved measures to codify that right in the constitution.
In Nevada, a majority of voters will have to approve the measure again in two years for the amendment to be enacted.
New York, where abortion is legal until viability, approved an amendment that would bar discrimination due to pregnancy or reproductive health.
In Nebraska, voters faced two duelling abortion initiatives. They rejected one that would have made abortion a right until viability and approved the state’s current rules, which ban abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy, with some exceptions, including incest, rape and saving the life of the mother.
