Abortion activists successfully executed another round of deceptive ballot measure schemes in multiple states on Tuesday. The midterm support for unlimited abortion in three states poses a striking contrast with Americans’ feelings about ending life in the womb.
Pew Research Center’s 2026 American Trends Panel found the the lowest support, 23 percent, for the radical unlimited abortion-for-all touted by Democrats since 2019. That figure is down six percentage points from the 29 percent recorded shortly after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
Idahoans acted on those figures when they rejected a proposition that would have given “every person” in the Potato State, no matter their age, a “right to reproductive freedom and privacy.” The majority of voters in Nevada and Virginia, however, cast ballots in favor of abortion without limits. Missouri, similarly, rejected an effort to repeal the state’s 2024 pro-abortion constitutional amendment approximately 55.5 percent to 44.5 percent, with more than 95 percent of the votes tallied.
These decisions were not as straightforward as abortion activists want you to believe. Abortion ballot measures are notoriously designed with vague and deceptive language intended to dupe voters into supporting them.
For years now, abortion activists have used this playbook to enshrine unlimited abortion in state laws and constitutions. Once enacted, these sweeping abortion-for-all declarations are used as a launching pad for legal challenges that weaponize the unclear language to target pro-life protections like parental consent and abortion reporting laws.
Some Missourians recognized this, which is why they used the ballot measure framework to target the first Amendment 3, a controversial and legally questionable “right to reproductive freedom” that narrowly passed in November 2024 51.6 to 48.4 percent. Abortion activists quickly weaponized the sweeping language to target parental consent protections for minors seeking to abort a baby, which requires parental permission or an explicit judicial override under Missouri law.
The 2026 election’s Amendment 3 asked Missourians to repeal the 2024 constitutional amendment. The text also clarified exceptions for abortions and, in an effort to counter disinformation, confirms treatment for “miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other medical emergencies” is not prohibited. Amendment 3 also “prohibits gender transition surgeries and the prescription of cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to minors.”
Voters in Nevada already supported a ballot question to enshrine unlimited abortion in their state constitution in 2024 after left-wing activists flooded their ballot measure battles with dark money. Despite facing another chance to reject Question 6 in 2026, Nevadans voted 63.3 percent to 36.7 percent to adopt a “fundamental right to an abortion.”
Abortion in Nevada is already permitted at any point of pregnancy as long as “the physician has reasonable cause to believe an abortion is necessary to preserve the life or health of the pregnant person.”
In Virginia, voters agreed to permit killing unborn babies for any reason up until birth 62.4 percent to 37.6 percent. As my colleague Breccan Thies noted, “The ‘yes’ campaign for the amendment raised about three times more money than the ‘no’ campaign.”
“The amendment strips any age restriction or parental notification requirement for abortion, meaning minors can obtain abortions without their parents’ knowledge or consent. It also labels requirements to provide any kind of informed consent about what abortion truly involves and the associated risks an infringement on the ‘right,’ while reportedly forcing doctors who do not want to perform the procedure to do so under threat of losing their jobs,” Thies added.
Despite the support for Question 1, the ballot measure battle isn’t over in Virginia. A challenge to the amendment’s “deceptive” language will be heard on Nov. 13.
