Across the nation, state ballot boxes have become a battleground for life. In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,1 pro-abortion activists have sought to contrive state constitutional protection for elective abortion. These efforts pose a serious threat to pro-life laws and the protection of preborn human beings, women, and adolescent girls. Both Michigan and Ohio are harrowing examples of the impact pro-abortion ballot measures have on life-affirming policies. In 2022, Michigan residents voted to enshrine a “right” to elective abortion in their state constitution. In the following year, Ohioans passed a similar amendment. Since then, both states have seen challenges to life-affirming laws in the legislature and the courts. For example, following the constitutional amendment in Michigan, the legislature sought to repeal numerous protections for women and preborn children, including the state’s ban on partial-birth abortions, informed consent safeguards, and provisions requiring abortion facilities to be licensed and operated under necessary health and safety standards.
2024 New York Abortion Ballot Initiative
This November, New York faces a similar ballot initiative entitled, the “New York Equal Protection of Law Amendment” (“ERA”). The ballot initiative seeks to amend the New York constitution to add “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, . . . or sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy” as protected classes under the state’s equal protection clause.2 The amendment goes further by specifically encouraging the state to enact “any law, regulation, program, or practice that is designed to prevent or dismantle discrimination on the basis of [abortion]…”.3
Informing Women of Authentic Choice Is Not Discrimination
Unlike citizens of other states facing abortion ballot initiatives, New Yorkers are being asked to declare that a person’s decision to terminate a human life in the womb constitutes a protected class – meaning any action by the state, such as ensuring a woman is fully informed about the procedure or crafting health and safety requirements for abortion facilities, would be an act of discrimination. Note, for a second, this newly formed protected class for abortion would stand alone among those already crafted or being joined with it. It is the only protected class that involves the act of terminating another human being – thereby denying any protections the aborted child may have enjoyed, such as protections against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, etc.
Although New York’s current law is egregious in that it includes a broad post-viability exception allowing the abortionist to determine an abortion “is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health”4, it pales in comparison to the ERA’s mandated reckless abandonment of human life.
Grave Consequences for New Yorkers
The consequences of the unrelenting power of defining a decision as a protected class must disabuse New Yorkers of the amendment’s attempts to disguise abortion as healthcare. As discussed below in Section V, abortion is not healthcare. It is the intentional destruction of innocent preborn human life. Additionally, as the Supreme Court acknowledges in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states have a legitimate interest in preserving prenatal life, mitigating fetal pain, and protecting maternal health.5 The ERA asks voters to tell New York to do the opposite.
The ERA’s fallout would be devastating, especially for the welfare of New York women and their preborn children. The ERA enshrines abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy into the constitution, increases the number of coerced abortions in New York, and furthers the harmful and false narrative that abortion is necessary for women to have equality and success in America. The ERA allows abortion activists to turn New York into a permanent abortion destination that endangers the health and safety of its residents both inside and outside the womb.
