
Students for Life Action (SFLAction) documented the ongoing attempts by the pro-abortion lobby to put abortion on the ballot nationwide through signature collection campaigns and ballot initiatives. In 2024, four states so far confirmed abortion will be on the ballot: Maryland, New York, Arizona, and due to a recent Supreme Court ruling, Florida.
Another eight states are still collecting signatures. These referendums are a preferred tactic of the abortion industrial complex and their corporate funders, largely because they have language that’s unfamiliar to voters, often written in a way that is deliberately confusing. This confusion enables the issue to often go even further than expected – for abortion, that can mean almost no restrictions at all.
With President Trumps recent announcement that he’s not planning a national level policy on abortion restrictions, what happens at the State level only becomes that much more important in the short term.
However, this tactic by the pro-abortion lobby to shove abortion into law through ballot initiatives is a double-edged sword.
First, the youth vote doesn’t like the extreme positions that the ballot initiatives take. According to polling from Students for Life of America (SFLA) & the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement (IPA):
“A plurality of the Youth Vote did not support the radical implications of such measures, indicating that better educational campaigns need to be engaged in future initiatives. The Youth Vote, by 37%, did not want abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy with no limits; 36% supported parents/guardians being involved in a minor’s abortion decision; 24% opposed taxpayer funding; and 21% did not want state legislators to lose their ability to pass laws that relate to abortion.”
The same poll showed that more than six in 10 (65%) of the Youth Vote support limits on abortion, in all or some circumstances. Only 9% supported the Democratic Party’s radical agenda of abortion through all nine months without limits, up to and including allowing infanticide — the death of a baby born during a botched abortion.
What’s more, the youth vote wants to see real solutions. More than three in 10 said they would be more willing to accept limits on abortion IF there were more services.
If the largest voting bloc in America – the youth vote – which is a historically reliable voting bloc for Democrats, rejects the Democrats own policy proposals, these ballot initiatives might backfire.
Secondly, the premise that abortion is a slam dunk election winner for Democrats certainly may appear true given their recent wins in Ohio, Virginia, and Kentucky. However, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ran in 2022 on the promise to sign a Heartbeat Abortion Prevention Law if it came across his desk. He not only won Florida by 20 points (after signing a 15-week Abortion Prevention Act into law), but then went ahead and signed The Heartbeat Abortion Prevention Act. With the right messaging, campaign, and focus, not only can life win elections it can completely dominate them.
We saw a similar phenomenon play out in Virginia where strongly pro-life candidates won, even knocking out Democrat candidates for the election in 2023. As we wrote at the time, “Emily Brewer, among other candidates, were willing to take public positions to support ending abortion entirely and passing Abortion Prevention Acts if elected. And despite this position, she flipped her district from Democrat to Republican.”
READ: Washington Post Fact Check: No, 15 Weeks Didn’t Win in Virginia – But Life at Conception Did
We have also routinely seen polling that shows that Heartbeat Abortion Prevention Acts and limits when a baby can feel pain poll at basically the same levels.
Lastly, ballot initiative campaigns can also be expensive, and as we’ve documented previously, the abortion industry isn’t bringing in the cash it once did. According to news from Politico:
“Abortion rights could be on the ballot in nearly a quarter of states this November, raising concerns among supporters about the ability to fund major campaign efforts in all of them.
From deep-red Arkansas and Missouri to purple Arizona and Nevada, activists are already competing with each other for a limited pool of cash and auditioning for the national progressive groups they need to fund their efforts to enshrine protections in state constitutions.
There isn’t enough for everyone, particularly as wealthy donors who have showered ballot campaigns with cash in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade now have their attention — and wallets — divided between those efforts and presidential and congressional races.”
A separate report from Axios highlighted that the expected “rage donations” that the abortion industry relies on hasn’t materialized to the level that the pro-abortion movement in Florida wants: “The so-called “rage giving” slowed last year, Kelley said. The group received $272,000 in individual donations last year compared to $755,000 in 2022, according to the fund’s 2023 impact report. In the meantime, demand has increased. The group fielded 910 calls in 2021, 1,761 in 2022 and 3,389 last year.
The big picture: Abortion funds across the country have faced similar drop-offs in giving as demand for services has increased, per the Associated Press.”
In short, the abortion lobby might successfully get their initiatives onto the ballots, but they might not have the funds to finish the race – which could prove disastrous come November.
But to the Democrats credit, they’re playing to their strengths – they are excellent at destroying things. Destroying life, destroying the economy, destroying public safety, destroying international peace, destroying families, destroying the border, destroying everything. Abortion is all the Democrats can offer Americans and it’s not a replacement for a functional agenda or a safe and prosperous country.
And despite their race to use abortion as a get out the vote to save their failing Presidential candidate, many Americans aren’t buying the extremism being sold anymore.