In Rare Good Deed, Montana’s Legislature Shut Down a Fetal Personhood Ballot Measure

Montanans voted so decisively for a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in November that even Republican lawmakers seem to have gotten the message.

By Kylie Cheung | April 24, 2025 | 12:55pm

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

In Rare Good Deed, Montana’s Legislature Shut Down a Fetal Personhood Ballot Measure

Proving that showing up for abortion rights matters—even in ostensibly deep-red states—the GOP-controlled Montana legislature has defeated a bill that would have placed a measure enshrining fetal personhood on the next statewide ballot. The bill, HB 316, would have established citizenship rights for fetuses in Montana’s Constitution, but failed to secure the 100 out of 150 votes in the state legislature required to place an amendment on the ballot. HB 316 received just 58 “yes” votes in the House and 33 in the Senate, unable to draw the bipartisan support necessary to get on the ballot. (There are 100 members of the state House and 50 members of the Senate; Republicans hold 58 seats in the House to Democrats’42, and 33 seats in the Senate to Democrats’ 18.)

In November, Montanans voted decisively for a ballot measure to protect abortion rights, passing the measure with a resounding 58% of the vote. Even before November, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that bodily autonomy is protected under the state Constitution, which has shielded Montana from a total abortion ban since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. And, because Democrats were able to hold onto enough seats last election cycle, they were able to prevent 100 members of the legislature from placing an extreme fetal personhood measure on the next ballot.

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Still, some Republican lawmakers were outraged by HB 316’s defeat and spewed the usual nonsense Republicans wield to justify their attacks on pregnant people’s bodies and lives. “I think abortion is murder, and I’ll catch heck for that I’m sure, but it’s the killing of a person, a formed, live person. Making it a right to privacy is baloney,” state Sen. Vince Trebas (R) said last week as the Senate debated the bill. He continued, “This is the child’s body that we’re talking about. And they have a right to life.” Of course, as Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers put it, “Call it baloney or not,” thanks to the Montana Supreme Court and the successful abortion rights ballot measure, the right to abortion is “in the Constitution, and it’s an important right.”

State Sen. Cora Neumann (D) also raised that HB 316 threatened the accessibility of IVF and other fertility treatments, which are naturally jeopardized by fetal personhood measures, because IVF requires the routine destruction of embryos. Since February 2024, when the A labama Supreme Court endangered IVF by determining frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” whose destruction qualifies for wrongful death lawsuits, concerns about IVF have unified Republicans and Democrats in some state legislatures— including Alabama’s.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana President Martha Fuller celebrated the defeat of HB 316: “The government is not now and never will be the expert on the lives, families or pregnancies of Montanans—it’s high time for politicians to respect the personal and medical privacy of their constituents,” she said in a statement.

Unfortunately, the legislature did pass two anti-abortion bills that now advance to Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk, the Daily Montanan reports. HB 388 would empower anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers to operate without state “interference,” effectively granting these facilities unfettered power to prey on, deceive, and surveil potential abortion seekers, which is CPCs’ primary purpose. The Montana Family Foundation has advocated for HB 388 by claiming the bill shields CPCs from being punished for not providing abortions, but… that isn’t even happening. There isn’t a single facility in the U.S. that’s being punished for not providing abortion services—lying to and spying on abortion seekers to manipulate them into not having abortions, however, is a very different story.

The other bill, SB 154, would prohibit the sale of “whole human bodies” and “human fetal tissue.” Both of these are already illegal, mind you. The goal is to further stigmatize abortion and likely render abortion providers vulnerable to even greater state surveillance.

In February, Montana Republicans also introduced a disturbing bill to criminalize abortion-related travel, specifically by invoking fetal personhood to charge abortion travelers and those who help them with “trafficking” their unborn fetus or embryo. Individuals could face up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine under HB 609. This was the first abortion travel ban to recognize the fetus as a “trafficking” victim. While the bill included a footnote supposedly barring the abortion patient from facing penalties, it simultaneously criminalized anyone who “[transports] an unborn child”—a traveling pregnant person is automatically transporting their “unborn child.” But Montana Republicans quickly withdrew the bill after it sparked enormous backlash and national outrage.

So, between the demise of the “trafficking” bill and the failure of HB 316, the takeaway is clear: When voters and the general public draw definitive lines in the sand, even anti-abortion lawmakers will have no choice but to back down.

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