10 states have abortion on the ballot as campaigns go to extremes

As 10 states consider abortion in election, opponents get extreme with messaging

What you probably already know: Ten states will vote on abortion measures next Tuesday as Americans head to the polls, and that has ramped up both sides’ attempts to paint the other as extreme. The focus: Abortions later in pregnancy, which are extremely rare and usually only when the mother’s life is in danger. Republicans have gone so far as to claim that Democrats are willing to execute babies after they’re born, a message presidential candidate Donald Trump has said himself. Democrats, however, have also sought out extremes, highlighting women who were denied abortions even when they were close to death, situations that are rare but becoming less rare as abortion bans leave doctors wary.

Why? The extremes obfuscate the reality that 80% of abortions happen in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and 94% happen before the end of the first trimester, which is about 13 weeks. Late-term abortion or “partial birth abortion,” a concept that rallied anti-abortion activists in the 1990s, basically doesn’t happen. There’s simply no evidence that abortions happen late in a pregnancy, especially when a child is born alive. Obviously it’s illegal to kill a live baby.

What it means: For those whose abortions happen later in a pregnancy, it’s almost always because something tragic has happened. The baby might have a deadly developmental disorder and dies before it can be born, placing the mother at risk of sepsis if she remains pregnant. In other cases, the mother might develop a dangerous form of preeclampsia that puts her life at risk. Even then, these situations are rare and often happen before viability. Only one abortion happened post-viability in Ohio last year, for example, and two in Minnesota the year before.

What happens now? Of the 10 states with abortion on the ballot, nine are focused on restoring rights that were eliminated after the fall of Roe vs. Wade. Most of those measures would allow abortions up to the point of viability, when a fetus can survive outside the womb. Polls have suggested that 61% of people think abortion should be legal in all or most cases in the first trimester, and 54% said it should be allowed through the first 15 weeks. In Maryland and Colorado, however, voters are being asked to approve broader language that protects access to abortion regardless of when a person seeks it out. Somewhat surprisingly, voters seem more inclined to approve measures without these limits.