Here are the many ways abortion is on the ballot around the country on Tuesday

Demonstrators held signs during a rally for reproductive freedom and voting rights on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor last month.JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Julie Rowe was knocking on doors on a windy Saturday in Michigan’s Macomb County when she encountered a woman who said that she planned to vote yes on a proposed amendment in Tuesday’s election to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution, despite normally voting for Republicans.

She’d been reluctant to tell the rest of her family, also conservatives. But when they finally spoke about it, the Macomb County woman told Rowe, she learned several relatives were also planning to vote yes, in part due to a family member’s own abortion experience. Rowe, the political and organizing director of abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom For All, was so struck by the conversation that she placed the woman on her list of people to personally call back on Tuesday to make sure they voted on the crucial measure.

“This is about durable and long-lasting protections in our state laws regardless of who are the elected officials at any given time,” Rowe said.

Michigan’s amendment is one of the many ways abortion is on the ballot in elections across the country on Tuesday. The Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and its nearly five-decade-old guarantee of a federal right to an abortion kicked the issue back to the states. It also made abortion a centerpiece of the midterm elections.

The abortion rights landscape is now a patchwork of state laws that could be directly or indirectly changed by voters at the polls in the first major election since the decision.

In Michigan and four other states, the issue is explicit, appearing as a referendum or amendment on the ballot. In several states with competitive gubernatorial contests, the winner could sign or veto abortion-related laws. And House and Senate elections across the country will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress and can pass laws enshrining Roe as the law of the land or put in place a national abortion ban (although President Biden, who has two years left in his term, has promised to veto such a ban).

“Voters are really being presented with a very stark choice, and they’re being presented with that choice on a lot of levels,” said Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, a top sexual health and rights research organization.

A group of anti-abortion demonstrators held a counter-rally near the US Capitol during the annual march to support women's rights in Washington, D.C., early last month.ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

Ballot measures

Michigan, Vermont, and California voters may take proactive steps to enshrine the right in their state constitutions.

“It feels like we were very prescient,” said Becca Balint, a Democrat running for Vermont’s open US House seat and one of the state lawmakers behind the ballot measure, a process that started long before Roe was overturned. “I can’t tell you how many Vermonters are so relieved that we took these steps years ago to get to where we are right now.”

The measure is expected to pass, as is the one in California. Polls show majority support for Michigan’s proposed amendment, but it’s still viewed as competitive.

Voters in Kentucky, which now has a near total ban on abortion in place that is being challenged in court, face a different question. They’re being asked to approve a proposal called Constitutional Amendment 2, which would prohibit anything in the state constitution from being interpreted as a right to “secure or protect a right to abortion.” Kansas voters rejected a similar amendment this summer. There has been no public polling on the Kentucky measure.

“If Amendment 2 passes, then there will be no legal pathway for restoring abortion access in Kentucky,” said Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Protect Kentucky Access, a group organizing to defeat the ballot measure. “If Amendment 2 is defeated, there will still be a hard row to hoe to restore access to legal abortion, but defeating Amendment 2 is the first step to trying to find a path back to abortion being legal in the state.”

Montana has a referendum that would legally obligate medical providers to attempt to save the life of a “born-alive infant,” including those born alive after an attempted abortion, which rarely happens. The Montana Medical Association has come out against the ballot measure, on the grounds that it obstructs the patient-physician relationship and criminalizes the practice. There appear to be no polls on public support.

Governors races

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has vetoed anti-abortion rights legislation passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. But he’s not running for reelection because of term limits.

The race to succeed him between Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who has vowed to continue protecting abortion access, and Republican Doug Mastriano, who opposes abortion rights, “could be the difference between abortion access continuing as it is in Pennsylvania or ending overnight,” said Julie Zaebst, senior policy advocate for ACLU of Pennsylvania, the state chapter of the national civil liberties organization. Recent polls show Shapiro with a significant lead.

Several other states, including Michigan, have a similar dynamic with a Republican-controlled legislature eager to pass abortion restrictions and a Democratic governor who blocks their attempts up for reelection. In Wisconsin, for example, providers have halted abortions due to legal uncertainty around a pre-Roe ban. Governor Tony Evers has vetoed past Republican-sponsored bills enacting abortion restrictions and filed a lawsuit attempting to stop the pre-Roe ban. But even if he wins a tough reelection battle against Republican Tim Michels, Republicans could pick up enough seats in the legislature to override his veto.

“I think that’s been an interesting thing about this election cycle ... realizing that pro-life policy can come down to a few seats ultimately in a state that’s as partisanly divided as Wisconsin,” said Gracie Skogman, legislative director for Wisconsin Right to Life, a group that opposes abortion. “The pro-life movement has always realized that we have to change hearts and minds. It really comes down to those individual conversations that we have with voters, with women, so that’s where we’ve been setting our focus for this election cycle.”

In Arizona and Georgia, Democrats are hoping to take back the governor’s office from Republicans and try to reverse abortion restrictions they have signed, although GOP-led legislatures in both states would be an obstacle. “Having a Democratic governor in place is not going to put everything back to normal for us. There’s a lot of repair that needs to happen,” said Eloisa Lopez, executive director of Abortion Fund of Arizona, a group that helps people seeking abortions. “But hopefully they can start laying that groundwork with other elected officials.”

Federal races

Though the abortion fight now is mostly on the state level, federal races are also a key battleground. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, has introduced legislation that would ban most abortions nationwide after 15 weeks. Meanwhile, Democrats want to pass a law codifying Roe’s right to an abortion. The Democratic-controlled House passed such a bill this summer, but there was not enough support to take it up in the Senate.

The midterms will determine who controls both chambers of Congress and whether there are enough votes for either party to pass abortion-related legislation. Polls indicate Republicans will win the House majority, which would be in keeping with historic midterm trends, while the Senate looks to be a toss-up.

“It is naïve, it’s magical thinking to believe that these Republican legislators are not going to put forth abortion ban legislation,” said Minnesota Senator Tina Smith, a Democrat who worked at Planned Parenthood, noting that would supersede protections put in place on the state level. “And it’s important that voters understand that as we reach the culmination of the midterm election on Nov. 8.”

Abortion rights advocates are braced for years-long battles across the nation even after Tuesday’s elections.

“There’s no silver bullet to abortion access in this country. It’s going to have to be a state-by-state fight,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a national abortion rights group. But depending on the midterms, “we have an opportunity to either block further harm from happening in places … or to expand and dramatically reshape access.”