By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Mar 21, 2024 / 11:35 am
The Montana Supreme Court this week gave the green light to a pro-abortion amendment to the state’s constitution that may appear before voters in November.
In a 6-1 decision issued on Monday, the court held that state Attorney General Austin Knudsen had “erred” when his office determined that the proposed pro-abortion ballot measure was “legally insufficient” to be placed on the ballot in this year’s election.
The measure as described on the Montana secretary of state’s website would “[prohibit] the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability” and would further forbid any restrictions on abortion “when it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
State Deputy Solicitor General Brent Mead said in a Jan. 16 letter that the measure fails the state’s “separate-vote requirement,” which mandates that multiple state ballot measures be prepared and submitted separately so that voters can distinguish between them.
The measure would change Montana state law in numerous ways, Mead argued, including rules regarding fetal viability and medical regulations; the measure as it was written “creates an express right to abortion but denies voters the ability to express their views on the nuance of the right,” he argued.
In their ruling, the justices disagreed with Mead’s assessment, arguing that the ballot proposal “effects a single change to the Montana Constitution on a single subject,” namely the right to abortion.
“If [the measure] is placed on the ballot, voters may ultimately agree or disagree with the proposed change that [it] offers,” the justices wrote, “but they will be able to understand what they are being asked to vote upon.”
The court ordered that Knudsen “prepare a ballot statement consistent with the applicable statutory requirements” and that his office “forward the statement to the Montana secretary of state within five days.”
In his dissent, Justice Jim Rice argued that the attorney general “properly determined that the initiative, in its totality, is legally insufficient.”
He wrote that the measure makes “two or more changes to the constitution that are substantive in nature” and that it is “virtually impossible … for a voter to fully comprehend the effects of its multiple provisions.”
Abortion supporters and pro-life advocates have been battling at the ballot box in the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade.
Voters in seven other states around the country — California, Vermont, Michigan, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio — have voted in favor of abortion since Roe’s repeal with residents either voting to expand abortion access or else voting down pro-life measures at the ballot box.
Nearly a dozen other states, meanwhile, are considering various abortion measures, both pro-life and pro-abortion, in November.
