Don’t Be Fooled Again: End the Ballot-Box Crusade for Late-Term Abortion

Voters in Virginia, Idaho, Nevada, and Missouri should know the truth about what’s on their November ballots.

Something was different.

Her mother’s heartbeat, so familiar after six months, was racing. Her mother’s breathing, once calm and steady, was now uneven, coming in quick, short pants. Strange, muffled sounds and unfamiliar voices were all around. She pulled her thumb from her mouth and listened intently.

Then something grabbed her leg—and twisted.

A dilation and evacuation abortion, also known as a dismemberment abortion, is the most common method of late-term pregnancy termination. Abortionists kill tens of thousands of unborn American children this way each year, and soon, that number could skyrocket.

As conservatives have focused on other issues in the post-Roe era, a deceptive and coordinated crusade to legalize abortion until birth nationwide has been quietly turning moderate and even pro-life states into havens of abortion extremism.

It happened in reliably red Ohio in 2023, when voters unwittingly approved abortion through birth for broad “health” reasons. Missouri and Montana, similar conservative strongholds, followed suit with such amendments in 2024. Come November, three more states could fall to this scheme if those who value human life fail to act.

‘Virginia’ No More

Who would have thought a state named for a virgin queen would one day be on the verge of legalizing abortion on demand? Yet a measure slated for Virginia ballots this November would effectively cement a right to abortion up until birth in the state’s constitution—unless the people can stop it.

Victoria Cobb, president of the Richmond-based Family Foundation Action, is confident voters will do just that if provided with the facts.

“People just need to understand that this amendment is not what they’re being told it is,” Cobb told Restoration News. “They really need to read the actual language, not simply take other people’s word for what it does.”

Virginia currently allows abortion until the 27th week of pregnancy, the start of the third trimester. Yet Cobb noted that a woman may obtain an abortion even later if three doctors certify the procedure’s necessity to prevent “irremediable harm” to her health. Amendment 1, she said, would relax that restriction to allow abortion “up until the moment of birth, with only the abortion doctor approving a late-term abortion, and it can be for a woman’s mental health.”

Notably, “mental health” is a broad category that could include anything from psychological disorders to the occasional bout of anxiety. In other words, “there is literally no reason a woman won’t be able to get an abortion at 32 weeks, 36 weeks, final stages,” Cobb said.

In truth, every pregnancy involves some physical and mental health risks. The question is whether those risks justify killing a viable, pain-capable, full-term baby. Cobb contends that most Virginians would say they don’t.

“If [abortion lobbyists] went to the ballot with a constitutional amendment that said, ‘We’re going to allow abortion up until the moment of birth, and the abortionist is the only one that says it’s necessary for a woman’s mental health,’ it would be immediately voted down,” she said. “They are banking on the voter not reading the actual words of the full amendment, and they have put forward a ballot summary that is fraudulent.”

The Family Foundation’s legal arm, Founding Freedoms Law Center, filed suit challenging Amendment 1’s proposed ballot summary as unconstitutional. The complaint charges that the ballot summary fails to fully inform voters of its ramifications, including the nullification of existing parental consent requirements for minors seeking abortions and, potentially, sex-rejecting procedures.

The sweeping amendment grants “every individual”—not just adults—a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” that encompasses their decisions about everything from abortion and contraception to fertility care, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, and miscarriage management.

“Fertility care,” Cobb explained, “is a very broad term and is often connected to gender transitions because when one attempts to transition their gender, the net result is that their fertility has been removed, that they are sterile. If an individual has a right to fertility care, our concern is that, all of a sudden, young children are being given the right to transition without a parent’s involvement.”

As for minors seeking abortions, current law requires them to obtain written consent from a parent or other authorized adult. Amendment 1’s passage would render that requirement unenforceable. That’s bad news for victims of child sex trafficking and abuse, Cobb said.

“This amendment gives this very wide immunity to anyone who helps or assists with an individual getting an abortion,” she noted. “Well, there are a lot of people with ill intent working with women to get abortions—coercive boyfriends and husbands, sex traffickers, pimps. There are people that we want the state to step in and be able to go after, and this amendment makes it very difficult by its broad wording.”

The lawsuit does not seek the amendment’s removal from the ballot—just transparency about what it would change. But Cobb said the case is still in its early stages and “has quite a path still to go.” And with early voting starting on Sept. 18, the court is running out of time to intervene.

Idaho, Redefined

Idaho is likely the last state to come to mind when discussing abortion extremism. In fact, the state has almost totally banned the procedure, with exceptions only for cases involving rape (during the first trimester) or life-threatening pregnancy complications.

Proposition 1 seeks to upend that status quo. The amendment would grant “every person”—again, that includes children—an inviolable and unregulatable right to abortion for any reason through “fetal viability” and after for medical emergencies.

Traditionally, doctors have defined fetal viability as the point at which a child is likely to survive outside the womb with medical assistance, typically between 22 and 24 weeks’ gestation. But voters who neglect to read the entirety of Proposition 1 are likely to miss one crucial detail: it completely redefines viability.

“‘Fetal viability’ means the point in pregnancy when, on the basis of a physician’s good faith medical judgment, based on the facts known at the time, and determined on a case-by-case basis, the fetus has a significant likelihood of sustained survival outside of the uterus without extraordinary medical measures,” the text reads (emphasis added).

Under this definition, a baby born prematurely at 24 weeks, who could survive and thrive after some time in neonatal intensive care, would not qualify as viable. In fact, neither would most preemies, Idaho-based attorney Megan Wold noted in an August op-ed for the Coeur d’Alene Press.

“For most babies, that time [of survival without medical assistance] doesn’t come until only four weeks before delivery,” Wold wrote. Doctors consider babies to be preterm if born before 37 weeks.

“That makes Prop 1 far more extreme than Roe v. Wade,” Wold added. “Prop 1 guarantees abortion-on-demand well into late-term pregnancy, long after an unborn baby feels pain.”

That would be quite the about-face for a state that currently protects life from conception.

Like most recent pro-abortion ballot amendments, Proposition 1 also leaves the determination of a child’s viability entirely up to the abortionist who stands to profit from the procedure—no impartial opinions necessary. What are the odds that someone who earns a living by killing unborn children would have the moral fortitude to forfeit a hefty paycheck when they could easily fabricate a reason not to?

Survey says: unlikely.

Nevada’s Second Chance

Nevada is unique in that it is the only state that requires citizen-initiated constitutional amendments to pass twice at the ballot box to become law.

That rule is the only obstacle blocking abortionists from killing full-term babies in the Silver State right now. On Nov. 3, that final defense will crumble if voters pass Question 6.

Vanessa Faura, director of Restoration of America’s Citizenship Masterclass, said she hopes for a different result. “Abortion is already legal in Nevada up to six months of pregnancy, and this constitutional amendment . . . it’s going to allow it up to birth,” Faura told Restoration News.

Restoration of America's Vanessa Faura leads a Citizenship Masterclass for prospective U.S. citizens.The initiative aims to establish for all individuals a “fundamental right to abortion” through fetal viability “or when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient” in the state’s constitution.

Under the new law, abortions could be performed up until birth without the involvement of a licensed physician—even in complex medical emergencies. As with Idaho’s measure, Question 6 redefines viability to exclude any case where a baby would need “extraordinary medical measures” to sustain his or her life. Additionally, like the other states’ amendments, it would nullify existing parental consent protections for minors.

In Nevada, the age of consent for sex is 16. That means any child under 16 seeking an abortion is, by definition, a victim of rape. If Question 6 passes, future victims will lose the protections afforded by parental consent requirements, allowing their attackers to escape justice.

“It’s just terrible,” Faura said. “And I think if the public, the voters, would actually have those simple pieces of information, it would make a huge difference.”

Faura, a naturalized citizen originally from Peru, helps legal U.S. residents prepare for their citizenship exams by educating them about the documents, principles, and values on which the nation was founded. She also teaches them about the civic responsibilities that come with citizenship, including voting.

At a recent class in Nevada, Faura said she informed participants about Question 6 and what its passage would mean. The overwhelming response, she said, was one of shock and indignation.

“Once they found out about it, they wanted to go out the door and go vote immediately,” she said. “They had no idea abortion was even legal. They couldn’t believe it.”

Faura noted that part of her job is to help future citizens understand the legislative process. She explained to her class that if Question 6 passes, reversing the damage will be extremely difficult. “Just providing them all that information pretty much shocked them,” she recalled.

Nevadans already approved the proposed amendment once. That makes the November election their second—and last—chance to protect babies and sexual assault victims in their state.

A Show-Me Showdown

The lack of awareness Faura witnessed in Nevada is precisely what those pushing these amendments are counting on. It’s already secured them victories in several conservative states, including Missouri. But now that Show-Me State voters have seen the bill of goods they were sold, they’re crying foul.

“I hear all the time people talking about ‘I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t fully understand what it was. I wish I hadn’t voted the way I did,’” Missouri resident Nadine Kelsay said at a July forum in Kaiser, per a local CBS affiliate. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

Before the constitutional change, Missouri had some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. State law banned the procedure in nearly all cases except medical emergencies. Now, Missouri women can abort babies through fetal viability—under its newly narrowed definition—and up until birth, as long as an abortionist says there’s a mental health risk.

In June, a Jackson County circuit judge struck down most of Missouri’s abortion regulations citing the state’s revised constitution. Those restrictions included reasonable requirements concerning informed consent, clinic licensing, admitting privileges at local hospitals, and more.

On a positive note, multiple attempts to lift the state’s parental consent requirements have failed—for now. But the better news is that voters will have a chance to reverse their 2024 decision this November by passing Amendment 3.

The legislatively referred constitutional amendment would not only strike the 2024 amendment from the Missouri Constitution, but it would also restore the state’s ability to regulate the abortion industry in all trimesters. It would prohibit abortions performed due to disability screening results, outlaw post-abortion fetal organ harvesting, and ban sex-rejecting surgeries and treatments for minors. It would also explicitly bar the state from infringing on a woman’s ability to access treatment for miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, or other medical emergencies.

Notably, the amendment does not ban abortion in the state. In fact, it creates additional legal carveouts for the procedure that the state did not allow previously—namely, for fetal anomalies or first-trimester cases involving rape or incest.

In a Sept. 8 video message, the Most Rev. Mitchell Rozanski, archbishop of St. Louis, acknowledged that Amendment 3 “is not perfect.” But noting local Catholics’ “long history of fighting the scourge of abortion,” he stressed that the measure “is a dramatic improvement over our current laws, and I am supporting it along with the Missouri Catholic Conference and my brother bishops around the state of Missouri.”

Winning the War

Importantly, the abortion lobby’s state-by-state scheme to codify abortion-on-demand has failed in select states. Voters in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota rejected those efforts at the ballot box in 2024.

But those were just battles in an ongoing war, and the last thing pro-life voters should do is become complacent. Missouri is a prime example of what happens when they do.

Faura said much of the responsibility for the pro-life movement’s recent setbacks lies with the general Church’s failure to address the immorality of abortion. “If we don’t care about life, then what are we fighting for?” she wondered. “If we don’t respect life, then it’s game over.”

She’s right. Life is not a privilege. It is a right granted to us by our Creator—not from the moment of birth or even fertilization, but from the very beginning of time when He conceived every single one of us in His mind and will.

As King David wrote in Psalm 139: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

This simple truth still stands, though it evades much of modern society. That is why those who know must hold the line.

That means speaking the truth boldly, even when it’s uncomfortable. It means defending the weak when they can’t defend themselves. And it means voting for people and policies that uphold the sanctity of human life.

Nov. 3 will be a consequential day for the thousands of babies who could be dismembered in the womb next year. Voters with the power to save them should do so at the ballot box.

MORE COVERAGE FROM RESTORATION NEWS

  Government Overreach Alert: Democrat AGs Targeted Pro-Lifers on Planned Parenthood’s Orders

  Late-Term Butchery: Massachusetts Democrats Remove All Restrictions on Late-Term Abortion—What It Means for America

  Mifepristone Kills: Virginia's Attorney General Falsely Claims Abortion Drug is Safe—Here Are the Facts

  Defund: Sen. Todd Young: Republicans Must Prioritize Defunding Planned Parenthood (EXCLUSIVE)

  Undermining States Defending Life: DOUG TRUAX: 330k Abortion Pills Sent to Red States

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