Why Anti-Abortion Advocates Aren’t Bothered by Ballot Initiatives

“There are only a limited number of states that allow for state ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution,” one anti-abortion advocate said. Soon, he said, abortion rights groups “won’t have any gas in the tank and they don’t know what to do next.”

SCOTUS Abortion
Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, ballot initiatives have emerged as a key strategy for abortion rights advocates to prevent and override state abortion bans. But to those in the anti-abortion movement, the initiatives are nothing but a bump in the road to ultimately ending abortion in the U.S.

“The good news is that after this run, there are only a limited number of states that allow for state ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution,” Steven Aden, chief legal officer for the group Americans United for Life, said at the National Celebrate Life conference in Washington this summer.

“Once they go through this run, they won’t have any gas in the tank and they don’t know what to do next because they know it’s not going to change by and large at the state level and it’s also by and large a stalemate at the federal level,” he added.