Legal challenges are being made to abortion rights vote measures in Nebraska and Missouri before they are certified.
On Friday, Missouri Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled against a ballot measure that would have protected abortion rights in the state. He agreed with a lawsuit that said the “petition violated state law by failing to provide voters with a list of Missouri laws that would be repealed, directly or by implication,” if it passed.
The proposed law would have written the right to an abortion into the state’s constitution, making it illegal for the government to get involved with the process.
The people in Missouri who are pushing for the ballot measure want to appeal Limbaugh’s decision to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to stop an order. However, Tuesday is also the last day to change the ballot. If the court doesn’t step in, an injunction would be put in place to properly throw out the ballot measure.
Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, said in a statement, “The court’s decision to keep Amendment 3 off the ballot is a huge injustice to the initiative petition process and violates the rights of the 380,000 Missourians who signed our petition demanding a say in this important matter.”
In Missouri, abortion is against the law, but there are some allowances when it comes to the mother’s life or health.
There is a 12-week ban on abortion in Nebraska. This November, two competing abortion petitions were supposed to be put to the voters, but it is now unknown if they will be given either choice.
One bill would give women the right to have an abortion until the fetus is viable, but it is being fought in court over whether it meets the “single-subject” standard.
A different ballot measure would not allow abortions in the second and third trimesters, “except when a woman seeks an abortion necessary by a medical emergency or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.”
In-person arguments about the cases were heard by the Nebraska Supreme Court on Monday.
“We believe it is clear that the rights amendment meets the single subject test.” Based on what this Court has said, we think the limits amendment probably works just as well. “However, if the Court were to take a narrower and stricter view of the single subject test, as the relators in the previous case asked, we believe that the restrictions amendment would clearly fail that test a long time before the rights amendment would,” Attorney David Gacioch said.
In Nebraska, the last day to certify votes is September 13.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and made abortion a state problem instead of a federal one, it has become a very important political issue.
States have since passed ballot measures in support of the process. This November, voters in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota, Colorado, New York, Maryland, and Montana will also have the chance to vote on similar measures.
A lot of Democrats have come together to support abortion rights, and Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign is built around the fight for reproductive freedom.
Harris has said many times during the campaign that former President Donald Trump will sign a bill that bans all abortions across the country. Trump says he wants the problem to be up to the states. He said that Florida’s six-week ban was “too short,” but he still said he would vote against a ballot measure that would allow restrictions on the procedure until the fetus is viable.