Voters definitively beat back anti-choice ballot initiatives on November 4, but opponents of legal abortion say they'll be back for another round. What can women's health advocates do to build up support before the next round of attacks?

The night of Tuesday, November 4, 2008, was a night of solid

victories against anti-choice ballot measures around the country. In

Colorado, voters beat back the country’s first "egg-as-a-person" ballot

proposal. California’s electorate vetoed parental notification measures for the

third time, and South Dakota beat back a second abortion ban.

For women’s health advocates celebrating

success against these restrictive measures, there is reason to be cautiously

optimistic that their message may have really sunk in: Americans are loath to

pull the lever in favor of limiting women’s autonomy. But even after decisive defeats, Bloomberg News

reports that anti-choicers in all three states threaten

a new round, hoping if not to achieve victory, then to distract reproductive health advocates and

keep the issue in the public eye. As one Colorado anti-choice activist put it, "Our

goal is to increase the social tension over abortion.”

And so reproductive justice

activists are prepared for the next cycle, should it be necessary. They hope

that blue-ing demographics and youth engagement will help their

cause in the long term. They are also eager to use a prevention and

reproductive justice framework to go on a peaceful offensive, challenging their

opponents to find common ground in reducing unintended pregnancies. It’s a

philosophy in keeping with a new administration whose modus operandi is reducing social tension over the issue

of abortion.

COLORADO: Definition of Personhood Voted Down

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Amendment 48, in Colorado, was the

first of its kind: an attempt to codify the rights of a fertilized egg,

"defining the term ‘person’ to include any human being from the moment of

fertilization as ‘person.’"

Because of the extreme nature of

this measure, it racked up opponents from Planned Parenthood to Republicans for

Choice, all of whom pointed out that it could threaten many kinds of birth

control as well as banning all abortion. Anti-choice politicians in Colorado

refused to endorse the measure. In an editorial against the measure, which it

called "an inane flight of fancy," The Denver Post editorial board pointed out:

If made into law,

Amendment 48 could allow a man to sue a woman with whom he had conceived for

wrongful death of his fertilized egg. It could subject a woman who had

miscarried to charges of negligent homicide.

As Colorado went "blue," voters delivered a handy defeat to

Amendment 48, 74 to 26 percent. Sarah Fong, from the No on 48 campaign, said

she didn’t anticipate those numbers moving drastically, "unless the political

climate really swings back to red in Colorado. It’s a bona fide blue state now."

But she said that although the campaign was pleased with the

perceived climate shift and is eager to spend the interim helping Colorado women,

reproductive health activists were fully prepared to face down another measure in 2010.

Indeed, Bloomberg quoted Bob Enyart, from Colorado Right to

Life, as saying "they’ll be back in 2010."

Fong said she could imagine

Kristi Burton, the young woman who co-wrote the amendment, becoming a

"poster child" for the personhood movement, which hopes to expand its reach

beyond Colorado with Personhood

USA, a new national organization aiming to put personhood amendments on all states with a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment process.

CALIFORNIA: Rejecting "Draconian" Notification

In California, voters defeated a

parental notification law for teens

obtaining abortions, for the third time in four years, this time 52-to-48.

As Emily Douglas reported

last Tuesday night, James Holman and Sonoma winemaker Don Sebastiani, two

well-to-do Californians who financed the last three measure, have shown no sign

of abating in the past and are already talking about a fourth swing.

"We almost feel an obligation to

go forward," Proposition 4 spokesman Albin Rhomberg told

insidebayarea.com on Thursday.

The parental notification law, if

it had passed, would be "more draconian than any law in any state," says President

and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California Kathy Kneer. "They have

already indicated that they’re coming back for a fourth round. It’s a 3,000 word

constitutional amendment, but they keep 2700 words exactly the same and try to find a way to make it look new and

improved," she said. She added on this issue, the challenge pro-choicers faced

was explaining to parents that defeating Proposition 4 was not a defeat of parental

involvement, but a measure of protection for vulnerable young women without

trusted adults in their lives.

Kneer said that young voters

helped defeat Proposition 4, and that Planned Parenthood and its allies had

developed an excellent grassroots infrastructure that she hoped could be used

for further outreach.



SOUTH DAKOTA: Staring Down a Ban

In the entire state of South

Dakota, there is only one abortion clinic. So it’s not a far leap to conclude that the proponents

of a ban, including Abstinence Clearinghouse founder Lelsee Unruh, were more

interested in an ideological battle than in drastically reducing the number of

abortions.

Still, a ban is a ban, and a

coalition of family planning advocates, the SD Campaign for Healthy Families,

worked tirelessly to fight the measure on behalf of South Dakota’s women. And in the end,

South Dakota voters defeated an abortion ban there for the second time, even though this time the ban had nebulous

health and rape/incest exceptions in its language. The margin was even wider

this time around — a solid 10 point victory in one of the reddest states in the

union.

"We were confident, leading up to

election, that the people of South Dakota

wouldn’t want the government intruding, and that women and families decide these matters best," said

Kathi DiNicola, director of media relations for Planned Parenthood of

Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Unruh, for her part, has made it abundantly clear

again that coming back for a third round is her plan, telling Bloomberg: "This

time, I’m here to stay.”

But DiNicola says that serving the

women of South Dakota is Planned Parenthood’s number one priority, and the best

way to combat ideological attacks from the other side. "We support common sense

public policy to prevent unintended pregnancies and bring real solutions to the

table," she said.

Indeed, on all fronts, reproductive health advocates are eager to return to the daily work of ensuring maximum access to health care

for women. Fong, Kneer and DiNicola all feel that that focusing on the issue of

prevention of unintended pregnancies and affordable healthcare–as well as safe,

legal abortion–is both the core of their mission and has the added bonus of

being a preemptive offense against the next slate of restrictive ballot

measures. After all, pointing out the wastefulness of campaigns to ban abortion

when all those resources could be used to actually prevent unintended

pregnancy is not only good policy, it’s also good PR. And it sounds a lot like

the approach President Obama is taking.