7 Out of 10 Pro-Choice Amendments Passed. Trump Could Override Them All.

The plans laid out in Project 2025 could restrict or ban abortion even in states that voted to protect it.

By Susan Rinkunas | November 6, 2024 | 5:18pm

Photo: Screenshot Abortion Politics 2024 Election

7 Out of 10 Pro-Choice Amendments Passed. Trump Could Override Them All.

A stunning seven states out of 10 voted to protect abortion rights in their state constitutions on Tuesday, but perhaps even more stunning is that those ballot measures passed with voters who also seemingly voted for Donald Trump—the man most responsible for state abortion bans and who could enact nationwide restrictions on the procedure.

There were 10 pro-choice measures on the ballot and they passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York. Trump won Missouri and Montana, and is on track to win Arizona and Nevada. Protective amendments failed in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Though it bears repeating that the Florida measure got 57% support—Amendment 4 only failed because of a 60% threshold voters passed back in 2006, a measure that didn’t even hit 60% itself—it got 58%. Nebraska had competing initiatives and the one that passed was pushed by abortion opponents and only protects abortion through 12 weeks, which is the current law.

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Trump will return to the White House in January and, as Jezebel and other outlets have repeatedly warned, his administration could restrict or even ban abortion across the country without passing a single new law. Unfortunately, federal abortion restrictions override any state abortion protections, even if they’re enshrined in state constitutions.

Trump’s Food and Drug Administration could also revoke its 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion regimen, which made up more than 60% of all reported abortions in 2023.

A Trump Department of Justice could decide to enforce the federal Comstock Act of 1873, a zombie law that conservatives argue can be revived to ban sending not only abortion medications through the mail, but potentially any supplies used for abortion procedures. A maximalist interpretation of Comstock could lead to the end of in-clinic abortions as well. (At least two Supreme Court Justices seem Comstock curious, and you can guess exactly which ones.) Some abortion providers have been preparing since a 2022 lawsuit to offer medication abortions using only the second drug in the regimen, misoprostol, but Comstock could ban mailing that, too.

Groups like Project 2025 published these ideas in a detailed playbook for all to see, but people elected Trump anyway.

Chillingly, it’s still possible for Republicans to retain control of the House, which would create a GOP trifecta for the first time since 2016. That could lead to Congress actually passing a federal ban, whether it bans abortions after 20 weeks, or 15, or six. The House passed a 20-week ban in 2017 when Roe still stood, but the bill didn’t clear the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster. A Republican Senate during a second Trump presidency could choose to end the filibuster.

Trump spread the narrative that he wanted to “leave abortion to the states,” and the media helped him do it. Now we’re going to find out how many bodies, lives, and futures will be destroyed as a result.