Reproductive rights advocates on Wednesday submitted a proposed constitutional amendment to the Montana secretary of state that, if allowed on the 2024 ballot and approved by voters, would explicitly protect pre-viability abortion in Montana’s foundational legal document.
The move is the latest development in a multi-year battle between political factions in Montana over whether abortion should remain legal and accessible. In announcing the filing, initiative sponsor Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana said the proposal is partly motivated by Republican state lawmakers’ repeated attempts to restrict abortion access during the last two legislative sessions.
Those laws, approved by Gov. Greg Gianforte, have been stalled in various state courts on the basis of a 1999 ruling that protects abortion access under the Montana Constitution’s right to privacy. Chris Coburn, a spokesperson for the Montana Planned Parenthood’s political advocacy group, said a constitutional amendment would cement those protections.
RELATED
Montana Republicans want to limit abortion access. It won’t be easy.
The state Supreme Court has long affirmed that privacy matters more than politics. The Republican-led Legislature is trying to change that.
“Just because abortion is currently protected under rulings made by the Montana Supreme Court, that does not mean abortion rights are secured,” Coburn said in a Wednesday interview. “Any change in the composition of the Montana Supreme Court or any bad rulings could change that instantaneously. So we’re explaining to voters that this amendment will protect their right to abortion in the Montana Constitution, ensuring that abortion access is placed beyond the reach of politicians.”
The constitutional initiative is not the first effort to protect abortion rights in Montana. Reproductive health advocates supported a Democrat-sponsored bill during the 2023 Legislature to codify abortion access in state law. That bill failed to pass a vote in its first committee, where Republicans held a majority of seats.
Several states have moved to ban or limit abortion since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned longstanding federal protections created by Roe v. Wade. Access is now severely limited or unavailable in Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota, making Montana one of few states in the region where people can legally terminate pregnancies.
Other states have turned to ballot initiatives and constitutional amendments to enshrine reproductive rights, including California, Vermont and Michigan. Earlier this month, voters in Ohio approved a constitutional amendment to protect abortion and other types of reproductive health care. Similar campaigns in Florida and South Dakota are currently in the process of gathering signatures to put the question before voters in 2024.
Coburn said the successful constitutional reform efforts in other states were confidence boosters for the backers of Montana’s initiative, but that Planned Parenthood has been working toward submitting its proposal for several months. After the defeat of the “born-alive” legislative referendum in 2022 and recent internal polling, Coburn said, the group decided the 2024 ballot is a ripe opportunity to harness Montanans’ support for reproductive autonomy.
“Just because abortion is currently protected under rulings made by the Montana Supreme Court, that does not mean abortion rights are secured.”
Chris Coburn, spokesperson, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana
“We just know that many Montanans feel politicians have gone too far in trying to make medical decisions for Montanans, decisions that belong to no one but patients and their doctors,” Coburn said. “As we move forward through this campaign, we will continue to have deep conversations, continue to do more polling, so that by the time we’re ready to start gathering signatures, we have a deeper understanding of how Montanans feel on the issue. And ultimately it will be up to Montanans when they vote.”
As drafted, Planned Parenthood’s initiative would broadly establish “a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion.” That right, the initiative states, “shall not be denied or burdened unless justified by a compelling government interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
The initiative would allow regulation of abortion after the point of fetal viability, but bars the government from interfering if the procedure is “medically indicated to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient.”
The ballot proposal defines “fetal viability” as “the point in pregnancy when, in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
The proposal also defines when a “government interest” is “compelling,” stating that any regulation must “clearly and convincingly” address “a medically acknowledged, bona fide health risk to the pregnant patient [and] not infringe on that patient’s autonomous decision making.”
Submitting the proposed initiative is just one step in a long process of putting the amendment before voters in 2024. The measure’s language must first be approved by the Montana Legislative Services Division and pass a legal review by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen. The Republican official recently deemed another amendment legally insufficient: that constitutional initiative would create a top-four primary election system, in which the highest vote earners advance regardless of their party affiliation. The backers of that proposal sued the state for ballot access, and on Wednesday the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and allowed the amendment to advance.
If Planned Parenthood’s constitutional amendment clears the first two procedural hurdles, supporters will have to collect signatures from 10% of the state’s electorate, including 10% of voters in two-fifths, or 40, individual legislative districts.
Coburn said he’s confident that Montanans will seize the opportunity to secure reproductive rights, both during the signature-gathering period and eventually at the ballot box, despite voters’ broad support for Republican lawmakers and statewide officials in recent elections.
“The electorate, time and time again, has voiced support for the right to make personal private medical decisions,” Coburn said. “There is a pretty glaring disconnect and misalignment between what policies and bills state lawmakers are pursuing and spending their time passing, and what the electorate in Montana wants, expects and deserves.”
This story was updated on Feb. 21, 2024, to correct a detail about signature gathering for proposed constitutional amendments.
LATEST STORIES
In the aftermath of a government scandal, Bozeman’s city manager looks to rebuild trust
Bozeman commissioners voted unanimously to promote Chuck Winn after severing ties with his predecessor, Jeff Mihelich, over a leaked video that went viral online.
The GOP scrum for Montana’s second House district
The crowded primary — where policy differences between candidates are few and a particular form of right-wing identity politics rules the day — is the kind of field that assembles when an open seat appears in a deep-red district that, for the right person, could provide a long and potentially influential career in national politics.
Judge dismisses lawsuit involving new public charter schools
The Montana Quality Education Coalition and state Superintendent Elsie Arntzen both lauded the recent resolution of their legal dispute over the process for opening new public charter schools this fall.