Montana voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution

On Nov. 5, Montana voters approved a highly contested ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. Constitutional Initiative 128 passed with over 335,000 votes.

“This is a huge win for Montana,” Martha Fuller, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana, said in a statement. “But now we must continue the hard work of educating citizens about the importance of reproductive health care and the ongoing threats to our reproductive freedom at all levels.”

Despite voting for the measure, a majority of Montana voters also voted for former President Donald Trump and incumbent Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. Montana voters also ousted three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, electing his opponent, Republican Tim Sheehy.

Tess Fields, the executive director of Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, said of the passage of the abortion rights measure: “I don’t think it feels like a win. And you know the reason for that is because the federal law can override state constitutional law. You can pass something at the state level; however, federal law trumps that.”

Abortion is legal in Montana up to fetal viability, which is usually considered to be at 24 to 26 weeks of pregnancy. Medicaid covers abortion care in Montana, and state law provides protection from harassment or physical harm to anyone entering a clinic where abortions are performed.

“I think it’s really important for people to understand that there are many ways to attack access to reproductive health care aside from just an abortion ban,” Fields said. “That would include rescinding emergency contraception being available over the counter. That would include regulating birth control options, that would include removing insurance coverage for birth control for women across the country.”

Fields said she doesn’t want to speculate as to why so many voters supported the abortion measure but also supported Republican candidates such as Sheehy, who called for abortion “all to end tomorrow” in an audio clip from 2023.

“I think there is a misunderstanding of how far these elected leaders will go in terms of executing their own ideology,” she said. “Many Americans, women and men, were completely shocked when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. Even though the reproductive rights movement was informing voters for years that this is what they were looking to do and this is what they would do, we consistently heard on the ground from supporters that they would never do that.”

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.

Fields said that on a day following the 2024 election, by 9:30 a.m. Blue Mountain Clinic had received three requests from women asking for appointments to prematurely switch out their intrauterine devices (IUDs) to ensure they have contraception protection through the four years of Trump’s presidency.

She said that the clinic recently received a call from a 19-year-old woman in Idaho who asked whether she would be arrested for crossing state lines to obtain an abortion in Montana from her state, where abortion is banned, with only extremely limited exceptions.

Fields said she wants people to remember that Blue Mountain Clinic is open and ready to help people who need care.