Arkansas’ highest court upheld a decision to keep an abortion rights ballot initiative off the state’s November ballot, agreeing with election officials that the group behind the measure did not properly submit documentation regarding the signature gatherers it hired. The move is the latest development in the ongoing fight to put abortion on the ballot in states across the country in 2024. Measures to protect access have already qualified to go before voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and South Dakota.
New York also has a ballot measures that proponents say would protect abortion rights, though there’s a dispute about its impact. Yet there have also been legal fights across the country on whether to allow voters to decide these questions — and the exact words used on the ballots and explanatory material. The U.
S. Supreme Court removed the nationwide right to abortion in 2022, launching a national push to have voters decide. Most Republican-controlled states have passed abortion restrictions since then, including 14 that ban it at every stage of pregnancy.
Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access. Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions before voters since 2022 — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont — have sided with abortion rights supporters. Voters in Arizona will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to add the right to.