Montana’s Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen certified a ballot measure on Tuesday night that will ask voters on Nov. 5 to amend their state constitution to “expressly provide a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion.”
Montana law currently prohibits abortion beyond “fetal viability,” which the state defines as beginning at 24 weeks gestation. The ballot measure if passed, however, would effectively ban the GOP legislature from passing any laws that limit abortion before that cutoff. It would also keep the government from holding abortionists accountable for misconduct like ending life in the womb late in pregnancy.
“CI-128 prevents the government from penalizing patients, healthcare providers, or anyone who assists someone in exercising their right to make and carry out voluntary decisions about their pregnancy,” the amendment states.
The proposal doesn’t simply ostracize the 55 percent of Americans who think ending life in the womb beyond the start of the second trimester, around 14 weeks gestation, should be “generally illegal.” It also uses vague language to deliberately prohibit the state from interfering with abortions at any point in pregnancy as long as a “healthcare professional determines it is medically indicated to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
This sweeping modification to the state’s already radical permissions means practically any abortion could be construed to meet the “medically necessary” qualifier required for taxpayer funding under Montana’s Medicaid program.
“Montana allows abortion until a baby reaches viability and that apparently isn’t enough for the abortion industry and their political allies. Through this amendment, they are attempting to enshrine all-trimester abortion in the constitution for babies who could survive outside of the womb and force the taxpayers to fund it,” State Public Affairs Director Kelsey Pritchard said in a statement.
Abortion activists debuted the measure in November 2023 in an effort to punish Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature and GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte for passing several pro-life laws, including limitations on taxpayer-funded abortion and protections for babies born alive after botched abortions.
To make the November 2024 ballot, the measure had to pass muster with Montana’s Legislative Services Division, as well as the state’s GOP attorney general and secretary of state. Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen attempted to invalidate the measure under Article XIV, Section 11 of the Montana constitution because he said it “logrolls multiple distinct political choices into a single initiative.”
The state Supreme Court, which decided this week to strike down a law requiring underage girls seeking abortions to obtain parental consent, overruled his findings, rewrote the language, and declared the measure did not qualify for an approval vote from a legislative committee as state statute required.
Montana’s GOP Senate President Jason Ellsworth claimed the court’s decision effectively “cuts the Legislature out of the process of reviewing this proposed initiative” but was ultimately unsuccessful at securing legislative review.
Official approval of the Montana amendment no doubt advances Democrats’ national abortion agenda by putting the party’s extremism on the ballot in at least eight states. It will also, as Axios noted, “boost the re-election bid of embattled Sen. Jon Tester.”
