Voters Protect Reproductive Rights In State Constitutional Amendments

Voters in Virginia and Nevada have approved constitutional amendments to protect reproductive rights, including abortion access and contraception. The Virginia measure establishes a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, protecting abortion during the first two trimesters and allowing regulation in the third only for the patient's health or life. It also creates a right to contraception and fertility care. In Nevada, voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution, permanently protecting access through the second trimester. With 86% of votes counted, Question 6 was leading with 62.3% support.

Reproductive rights amendments succeed despite mixed outcomes

While reproductive rights measures passed in several states, voters rejected proposals that would have restricted or expanded abortion access in Missouri and Idaho. Missouri voters rejected Amendment 3, which would have repealed a 2024 constitutional right to reproductive freedom. That failed amendment would have banned abortion except in cases of rape and incest during the first 12 weeks, or later for fetal anomalies. Voters in Idaho rejected an effort to repeal the state’s existing abortion ban, which took effect in 2022. They also defeated a separate ballot measure that would have created abortion rights in state law, where current law bans abortions except to save the life of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape or incest reported to law enforcement during the first trimester.

National trend shows growing voter support for reproductive freedom

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide abortion rights in 2022, voters in more than one-fifth of states have passed ballot measures protecting abortion rights. Voters decided 65 abortion-related ballot measures between 1970 and 2025. Of those, 44 were supported by anti-abortion organizations and 21 by pro-choice or reproductive rights organizations. This cycle, voters in Missouri defeated a proposed constitutional amendment that would have reimposed restrictions, reaffirming a 2022 decision to protect abortion access. Abortion-rights measures had failed in Florida and South Dakota two years prior.

The Nevada amendment allows state regulation of abortion after viability, except when medically necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient. The Virginia constitutional amendment establishing fundamental reproductive rights takes effect, ensuring abortion access through the first two trimesters with third-trimester regulations only for health or life reasons.