Abortion ballot organizer says Montanans should not take reproductive rights for granted

The year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Montana’s Republican-majority legislature passed an array of bills restricting abortion. Though these laws were blocked by courts and abortion until fetal viability remains the law in Montana, reproductive rights activists say they no longer feel confident that their state constitution’s right to privacy will always protect their rights while pregnant.

Now Montana joins nine other states who this November will vote on whether to explicitly protect the right to terminate a pregnancy in their state’s constitution. Last week the secretary of state’s office approved and certified Constitutional Initiative 128, which according to the ballot language, would “provide a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion. It would prohibit the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability. It would also prohibit the government from denying or burdening access to an abortion when a treating healthcare professional determines it is medically indicated to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”