Voters in seven states in the 2024 election approved measures to protect access to abortion, continuing a streak nationwide that brought together voters from both parties and in red, blue and purple states to support reproductive freedom.
Abortion is an LGBTQ issue. LGBTQ people can and do become pregnant and need reproductive health care. The same activists pushing anti-abortion laws also fought and failed against marriage equality and against LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections.
The 2024 results show overwhelming support for reproductive freedom:
- Arizona’s Proposition 139, which enshrined the right to abortion into the state constitution, passed by a greater than 20 point margin.
- Colorado’s Amendment 79, which added abortion access to the state constitution and repealed a provision limiting public funding for the procedure, passed by a 23 point spread.
- Maryland voters delivered the most decisive verdict, passing its proposed constitutional amendment by a 50 point margin.
- Similar to Missouri, voters in New York ignored anti-trans fear mongering to pass a sweeping equal rights amendment to the state constitution, securing protections for pregnant people and reproductive health care that include anti-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex.
- Montana’s abortion measure passed by 15 points.
- Nevada’s Question 6 passed 63% to 37%.
Ballot measures in Florida and Nebraska failed to pass, but faced different challenges. Florida’s measure needed 60% of the vote to advance—it received 57%, still a majority of the vote, and in spite of a furious and shady effort from Gov. Ron DeSantis that included using appointees and taxpayer resources to fight the measure. Florida’s draconian and dangerous six week ban remains in effect. Activists in Nebraska included a separate competing measure seemingly designed to confuse voters.
Voters who approved abortion access measures in Colorado, Maryland, and New York also voted for Vice President Kamala Harris for President. Maryland voted in Angela Alsobrooks to the U.S. Senate, who will join Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester as the first Black female Senators to serve simultaneously.
Tickets were split in the remaining states, where voters who approved expanded protections for abortion access failed to hold Donald Trump accountable for nominating Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe and jeopardized patient lives across the country. Donald Trump has also been found liable for sexual assault and defamation against E. Jean Carroll, and credibly accused of sexual assault by more than a dozen women. GLAAD is documenting Trump’s history of anti-LGBTQ policy and rhetoric, noting more than 225 attacks on the GLAAD Trump Accountability Tracker.