Success at the ballot and abortion policy environment: abortion-related state ballot measures, 1973-2023

• In Event: Elections, Turnout, and Ballot-Box Policy Making

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of “direct democracy” approaches in modern policymaking, very little is known about the use of ballot measures in the context of the abortion policy process. We aimed to describe historical patterns of ballot success and contemporaneous state abortion policy environments for abortion-related ballot measures in order to better understand potential success of future measures. We compared the proportion of electoral wins for all post-1973 abortion-related ballot measures by policy goal (restrict or protect abortion access), using Fisher’s exact test. We used the Center for Reproductive Rights’ annotated catalog of state abortion laws to create a dataset of 395 abortion restrictions (384 passed legislatively, 11 via ballot) and determined the year of passage for each law. We then characterized the abortion policy environment for all abortion-related ballot measures by calculating the number of abortion restrictions currently in place in the state at the time that each measure appeared on the ballot. We found that from 1973-2023, 51 abortion-related ballot measures appeared on ballots in 26 states: 43 (84%) restrictive, 8 (16%) protective. Protective measures were significantly more likely to be successful: 88% versus 26% restrictive (p=0.002). The majority, 63%, of both restrictive (27/43) and protective (5/8) ballot measures occurred in states with one or no existing restrictions. In recent years (2014-2022) five restrictive ballot measures (12%) occurred in states with highly restrictive existing abortion policy environments, although fewer than half (2/5=40%) were successful. We conclude that historically, abortion policy environments were similar for restrictive and protective abortion ballot measures. However, protective measures were more likely to succeed, suggesting that current state-level policy environment may play a more important role for future attempt to restrict, rather than protect, abortion access via ballot measure.

Author

• Emily Boniface, OHSU-PSU School of Public Health
  Presenting Author