HELENA, Montana (AP) — Voters will decide in November whether to enshrine abortion rights in Montana’s constitution. Montana on Tuesday became the eighth state to put the issue before voters this fall.
The Montana Secretary of State’s office confirmed that the abortion rights initiative will be on the general election ballot. All eight states but one are seeking to amend their constitutions.
The Montana measure seeks to enshrine a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that said the constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion by a doctor of the patient’s choosing. Republican lawmakers had sought to overturn the ruling, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and left the abortion question to the states.
“Since Roe was overturned, extreme anti-abortion activists have used every trick in the book to strip away our freedoms and ban abortion entirely,” Martha Fuller, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Montana, said in a statement. “During that time, we have worked together to put this issue before voters.”
Republican lawmakers in Montana passed a law in 2023 saying the right to privacy does not protect the right to abortion. The law has yet to be challenged in court.
Opponents of the initiative made numerous attempts to keep it off the ballot, and supporters took several cases to court.
Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen initially believed the proposed bill was legally inadequate. After the Montana Supreme Court overruled his decision, Knudsen rewrote the ballot text, stating that the proposed amendment would “allow post-viability abortions until birth,” eliminate “the state’s compelling interest in prenatal life preservation,” and potentially “increase the number of taxpayer-funded abortions.”
The Supreme Court eventually formulated its own initiatives for the petitions used to collect signatures. Signature collectors reported that some people tried to intimidate voters and dissuade them from signing.
The Secretary of State’s office also changed the rules so that signatures of inactive voters would no longer count, overturning a nearly 30-year-old precedent. The office made computer changes to reject signatures of inactive voters after they had already been collected and counties had begun reviewing some of them.
Supporters had to go back to court and received an order and additional time for counties to verify the signatures of inactive voters. Inactive voters are people who have filled out a general change of address form but have not updated their address on their voter registration. If counties have sent two letters to that address without receiving a response, voters are placed on an inactive list.
Supporters ended up collecting more than 81,000 signatures, about 10.5% of registered voters. The campaign needed just over 60,000 signatures and had to qualify 40 or more of the state’s 100 precincts by collecting the signatures of at least 10% of the people who voted for governor in that precinct in 2020. The initiative qualified in 59 precincts.
Republican lawmakers have made several attempts to challenge the state Supreme Court’s 1999 ruling, including asking the state Supreme Court to overturn it. The Republican-controlled legislature also passed several bills in 2021 and 2023 to restrict abortion access, including one saying the constitutional right to privacy does not protect abortion rights.
Several of these laws have been blocked by the courts, including a ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a ban on prescriptions for medication abortions through telemedicine services, a 24-hour waiting period for medication abortions, and an ultrasound requirement – all citing a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling.
Last week, the state Supreme Court ruled that minors in Montana do not need parental permission to have an abortion, overturning a 2013 law.
In seven states—California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont—abortion issues have already been put to voters since Roe was overturned. And in each of those cases, pro-life voters have won.
In 2022, Montana voters rejected a referendum that would have criminally prosecuted health care providers who fail to take “all medically appropriate and reasonable measures to preserve the life” of an infant born alive, including after an abortion attempt. Health care professionals and other opponents argued that if doctors are forced to attempt treatment, parents could lose valuable time with infants with incurable medical problems.
