Expert Panel Weighs in on the Lessons from State Abortion Ballot Measures

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the right to abortion became a state-by-state issue, prompting nearly 20 ballot measures in just two years. Reproductive rights advocates prevailed in seven of 10 initiatives in November, showing that ballot measures could be an important reproductive justice strategy. Against this backdrop, the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy brought together three reproductive rights advocates on Feb. 26 to discuss their experiences on ballot initiative campaigns, effective strategy, coalition building, and what’s ahead. 

Moderator Genevieve Scott, Reproductive Rights and Justice Project’s Co-Director, started by asking panelists to discuss the legal landscape and describe their role in the campaigns. First, Sarah Standiford, national campaign director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the story of a woman from Georgia who had to travel to three states to access abortion services. That is the environment that Planned Parenthood Action Fund now works in, Standiford said. She described the organization as a wraparound resource for supporting state ballot measures and the individualized state-level campaigns that are required to pass them. 

Standiford then described a challenge of  ballot measures: they must be narrow enough to be interpreted favorably by the courts yet stated simply enough for any voter to easily understand. In states where ballot measures have passed, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund also holds states accountable for delivering on any reproductive rights measure passed, Standiford added. 

Next, Sarah Parker, executive director of Voices of Florida, shared her experience as part of the 2024 ballot initiative to protect the right to abortion that state. The ballot measure in Florida received 57% of the votes, but failed because the state requires 60% of the votes for a ballot measure to pass. Parker made it clear that this setback has only made activists like her more determined to get the six-week abortion ban repealed. Parker stressed that real progress can still be made in reproductive justice and that every incremental win is significant to the movement. 

“It is important to have people on the ground pushing against the status quo,” she said.

Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, emphasized that advocates must center the people impacted the most by reproduction. She went on to say that controlling who can give birth is an extension of white supremacy, citing how certain populations were sterilized in the early 20th century Merritt added that for Black women, abortion access has always been a question of life and death, even before Roe was overturned by the Supreme Court. 

Merritt also voiced concern that the reproductive rights movement has not had an open discussion about what the specific end goal ought to be. 
“When I think about the strategy to liberate abortion, the first question I have as an organizer is: Are we all on the same page?” she asked. 
Merritt urged that advocate prioritize through ballot initiatives progress informed by voters’ attitudes of not elite’ presumed political tastes.  
The event closed with audience questions, including some on the role of medical providers in providing access to abortion. 

The event was co-sponsored by YHeLPS, ACS, YLW+, If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, and YLDems.