Another marker on America's road to ruin
Pro-lifers have suffered yet another state-level loss, furthering a troubling post-Roe trend.
Last Thursday, Arizona governor Katie Hobbs (D) signed a measure to repeal an 1864 law banning most abortions in the Grand Canyon State.
GOP defectors helped engineer the defeat. A day earlier, during a state Senate debate over the bill, a pair of Republicans betrayed their party's platform and crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats. The final tally: 16-14 in favor of repeal.
Once the measure takes effect this fall, Arizona will allow abortions well into the second-trimester, capping availability at 15 weeks' gestation. The cutoff will provide meager protection for the unborn, as 93% of abortions occur within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The defeat in Arizona — the eighth major state-level setback since 2022 — is indicative of a wider trend. Aggressive pro-aborts are driving relentlessly forward with their agenda, while beleaguered pro-lifers, who seem to have lost the narrative, are fighting to hold their ground. Meanwhile, faux conservatives are tipping the balance toward termination by refusing to fight for life.
In the case of Arizona, a RINO faction was responsible for handing Gov. Hobbs the pen of repeal. However, it's not just turncoat lawmakers who are aiding Democrats in promoting death — far from it.
In a disturbing number of cases, it's the ordinary public — self-identified patriotic, red-blooded Americans — who are enabling the onslaught through apathy or outright hostility toward the unborn.
Kansas
The first sign of trouble emerged in the Sunflower State.
In April 2019, the Supreme Court of Kansas ruled that abortion is protected under the state constitution's Bill of Rights, which declares that, "All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Drawing from this clause, the justices invented a "right" to abortion:
"We are now asked: 'Is this declaration of rights more than an idealized aspiration? And, if so, do the substantive rights include a woman's right to make decisions about her body, including the decision whether to continue her pregnancy? We answer these questions, 'Yes.' "
The decision meant that under its existing constitution, abortion would remain law of the land in Kansas even if Roe v. Wade were overturned. Kansas pro-lifers began devising a plan to effectively nullify the high court's ruling by amending the state's constitution to explicitly declare that there is no right to abortion in Kansas.
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that there was no national right to abortion. After nearly 50 years, Roe was dead, and Kansas pro-lifers seized the initiative, hoping to capitalize on the apparent momentum of the wider pro-life cause. They introduced Amendment 2, or the Value Them Both Amendment, to alter their state's constitution to include protections for the unborn, and put the question to a vote on August 2, 2022.
In a stunning defeat, Amendment 2 was crushed — 59.16% of voters in the reliably Republican state cast their ballots against it.
A post-election analysis revealed the extent of the loss:
"Voters in big, urban counties such as Johnson, Sedgwick and Wyandotte overwhelmingly rejected the measure. But a number of small, rural counties also voted it down, surprising both supporters and opponents. Additionally, in a large number of other rural counties, the amendment won but by unexpectedly narrow margins. ... The amendment scrambled typical party-line divides in rural areas. Because of the registration advantage Republicans hold in many of these counties, it is all but certain that in some areas a sizeable portion of Republicans voted no."
Abortion remains law of the land in Kansas. And with the state secured as a haven for slaughter, it has become a magnet for abortion-minded women from surrounding states like Missouri and Oklahoma, which instituted protections for the unborn following Dobbs.
Election Day Coup
Three months after the shock in Kansas, a far bigger rout sent pro-lifers across the country reeling.
On November 8, 2022, a majority of voters in five politically and geographically diverse states followed Kansas in casting ballots against the unborn. Irrespective of their particular political hue — blue, purple or red — all five found common ground on the issue of abortion.
California
On the West Coast, citizens of the Golden State elected to enshrine abortion and contraception in their state's constitution.
California's Proposition 1, or the Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment, declared that "the state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives."
The measure passed overwhelmingly, garnering 66.88% of the vote.
Vermont
Likewise, in the East, voters in Vermont chose to codify abortion in their state's constitution.
Proposal 5, or the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, passed with a stunning 76.77% of the vote.
An analysis of the returns found that, "In every Vermont town, a majority of voters on Tuesday supported Proposal 5," with town-by-town results revealing "a broad base of support for the state constitutional amendment, even in conservative areas."
Michigan
Such results weren't limited to leftist strongholds on the coasts; pro-life measures also met defeat at a number of points in between. In the Midwest, for example, Michigan voters elected to enshrine abortion in their state's constitution.
Proposal 3, or the Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative, was designed to supersede a 1931 state law, dormant under Roe, that banned abortion.
The measure aimed to establish a "new individual right to reproductive freedom," including the right "to make and carry out all decisions about pregnancy, such as prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion, miscarriage management, and infertility."
Proposal 3 passed with 56.66% of the vote.
Kentucky
In the South, the citizens of Kentucky spurned Amendment 2, a proposal to modify the state's constitution to protect the unborn.
The referendum asked voters: "Are you in favor of amending the Constitution of Kentucky by creating a new Section of the Constitution ... to state as follows: To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion?"
Voters rejected Amendment 2 by a margin of 52.35%.
While abortion remains illegal in Kentucky, the defeat of Amendment 2 left open a door for eventual legalization. Because the state's constitution does not explicitly prohibit abortion, a left-leaning state Supreme Court could at some future point declare that the rights spelled out in the constitution cover abortion — a repeat of what happened in Kansas in 2019.
Montana
In the Mountain West, Montana voters rejected a "born-alive" proposal to recognize babies who survive abortion as persons under the law.
Referendum 131, or the Medical Care Requirements for Born-Alive Infants Measure, would have established that "infants born alive, including infants born alive after an abortion, are legal persons" and required "health care providers to take necessary actions to preserve the life of a born-alive infant."
Montana voters vetoed the measure by a margin of 52.55%.
A Troubling Takeaway
After the election-night massacre of November 8, 2022, it was clear that something was terribly amiss in America. The results in California and Vermont were to be expected, as these states are bastions of leftist ideology. Likewise, the defeat in Michigan was not especially surprising, as the state is growing bluer by the day under Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer. But the losses in Kentucky and Montana were galling, as these are reliably red states.
The downward spiral continued the following year.
Ohio
On November 7, 2023, pro-lifers suffered another setback in the Midwest, as voters in Ohio chose to amend their state's constitution to guarantee access to abortion and contraception.
Issue 1, or the Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety initiative, sought to enshrine into law that, "Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception; fertility treatment; continuing one’s own pregnancy; miscarriage care; and abortion."
The referendum passed with 56.78% of the vote.
A Rough Road Ahead
Advocates for the unborn can take some solace in the positive news out of Florida, where a ban on abortion after six weeks' gestation took effect last week.
But, on the whole, things appear ominous for the pro-life cause.
The situation in Arizona appears set to worsen, for example, as pro-aborts — unsatisfied with their 15-week window in which to kill children — are circulating a petition to codify abortion in the state's constitution, and crafting a proposal to extend abortion availability to 24 weeks.
It's a similar story in Montana, where activists are gathering signatures to put the Montana Right to Abortion Initiative on the November ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would amend the state's constitution to declare abortion a protected right.
And this is only the beginning: Activists in 11 other states — Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Dakota — are working tirelessly to place abortion-related constitutional amendments on the ballot in November.
For almost half a century after Roe imposed abortion from on high, pro-lifers could justifiably portray America's termination regime as top-down tyranny. But today, that explanation no longer holds. In the two years since Dobbs sent the issue back to the states, it has been primarily US voters themselves who have advanced the anti-life position. This forces us to ask: What sort of people have we become?
Now, the race is on to determine whether an untold number of Americans will be killed legally in utero. It remains to be seen if their fellow citizens will rally to their defense this fall, but thus far, the pattern isn't promising.
Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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