Planned Parenthood Great Plains chief medical officer Iman Alsaden speaks during an event for an abortion-rights ballot petition in Kansas City on Feb. 6, 2024. Alsaden said Missouri’s abortion ban harms patients and providers. (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent)
Abortion questions are on the ballot directly in 10 states across the nation. Behind most campaigns seeking to secure abortion rights are everyday Americans who put in months — even years — of work to get these ballot measures before voters. (Maryland and New York are the exceptions, with ballot questions drafted by lawmakers instead.)
Momentum for citizen-led initiatives swelled after residents in Kansas rejected an anti-abortion constitutional amendment put forth by a Republican-dominated legislature in August 2022, just two months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. The ruling decimated a nearly 50-year-old precedent and led dozens of states to enact abortion bans .