MD Voters To Decide Amendment Guaranteeing Reproductive Freedom

MARYLAND — Voters will find on the Nov. 5 ballot a referendum that would add reproductive rights to the state's constitution.

Question 1 asks voters to decide whether a right to reproductive freedom should be constitutionally guaranteed in the state of Maryland. Current protections are established under state law, but those can change by action of the state legislature.

Abortions are legal in Maryland. In 2023, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed into law a robust Reproductive Freedom bill package. That package included:

• an electronic health record data privacy bill;
• a shielding bill to protect providers and patients of legal reproductive health care, including abortion from attacks by anti-abortion extremists in other states;
• a bill requiring four-year residential public colleges to put in place a plan for students to access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, STI testing/treatment, contraceptives, and emergency contraceptives; and
• a constitutional amendment to ensure every person in Maryland has the right to prevent, continue, or end their own pregnancy.

The proposed amendment found on the ballot would add a new section that guarantees a right to reproductive freedom, confirming "the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue or end one's own pregnancy," according to the bill.

“Maryland already has laws protecting abortion, but we’ve already seen across the nation just how quickly those protections can get ripped away,” Megan Outten, a board member for Reproductive Justice Maryland, told Capital News Service. “Statutes can easily be overturned, but giving Marylanders this constitutional amendment is going to provide us with lasting security.”

According to Freedom In Reproduction Maryland, "Voting yes will amend the 'Declaration of Rights' in the Maryland Constitution to establish that everyone 'has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom,' including the right to abortion access."

"We as the state of Maryland have an obligation and a duty to protect women in this state and protect providers, to make sure that bodily autonomy and privacy matter here in the state of Maryland," said Senate President Bill Ferguson in 2023. "This gives residents of this state an opportunity to send a clear signal that access to safe abortions will be enshrined and will be projected for the future."

The proposed amendment reads:

Question 1- Constitutional Amendment (Ch. 245 of the 2023 Legislative Session) Declaration of Rights - Right To Reproductive Freedom

"The proposed amendment confirms an individual's fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue or end the individual's pregnancy, and provides the state may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means."

(Adding Article 48 to the Maryland Declaration of Rights)

In a letter to voters sent in January 2024, the Maryland Family Institute urged voters to reject the amendment, saying it would "cement Maryland's abortion laws, which are already some of the most extreme in the country."

Jeffrey Trimbath, president of the Maryland Family Institute, told Patch that "this amendment isn't really about abortion."

"This amendment is really about taking away parental rights ... the reason I say this is because of two parts of the language in the amendment," Trimbath said.

He said the phrase "every person" can be regarded as there being no constraints on the proposed legislation, so "whether you're a 2-year-old or a 12-year-old or a 90-year-old, this amendment applies to you."

The second phrase "reproductive health" isn't defined in the amendment or in Maryland statutes, Trimbath said.

"This is a concept that has no definition in American law that we've been able to find. The closest is the World Health Organization," Trimbath said. "This is an unbelievably expansive definition. We think that includes what a person's self perception of reproductive health is and that, by definition, includes transgender. It's not about abortion, it's about undermining parental rights."

In 2023, the Maryland General Assembly voted to place the referendum on the 2024 ballot, approving it by large majorities. According to a 2014 Pew Research study, 64% of Maryland adults think abortion should be legal in most cases, according to Capital News Service.

The abortion question plays a role in the U.S. Senate race on Nov. 5 in Maryland, as former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan attempts to convince the state's majority Democratic voters that he supports Roe-era abortion protections, Maryland Matters said. His Democratic opponent, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, has argued voters should not trust Hogan’s position on abortion access.