Kansas’s Aug. 2 ‘Value Them Both’ Vote First of at Least 6 Abortion Measures on 2022 Ballots

Kansas’s “Value Them Both” amendment goes before Sunflower State voters as a special election on their Aug. 2 primary ballots.

The measure asks voters to remove access to abortion as a right guaranteed under the Kansas Constitution in a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling.

It’s the nation’s first public referendum on abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling in a 6–3 June 24 decision and kicked abortion regulation back to the states.

As such, the Kansas “Value Them Both” special election is being intensely watched nationwide; pro and con campaigns have collectively spent more than $13 million, polls are knotted, and election officials predict record turnouts for a midterm primary.

Voters in at least five other states, maybe six, will also see abortion-related ballot measures in 2022, but not until November’s general elections. The six, or perhaps seven, 2022 statewide referendums are the most relating to abortion for a single year in the nation’s history, according to Ballotpedia.

California, Vermont, and Michigan voters will cast ballots this fall on proposed constitutional amendments that would enshrine access to abortion as a right.

As in Kansas on Aug. 2, Montana and Kentucky voters will be presented in November with proposals that curb access to abortion. Sponsors of a proposed restrictive abortion measure in Colorado have until Aug. 8 to garner the needed signatures to qualify.

Abortion-Related Measures in November

Several abortion-related measures will be on November ballots.

California Proposition 1: The proposed “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment” was placed on the Nov. 8 ballot by two-thirds votes of both chambers of the state Legislature.

The amendment states that the state can’t “deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions,” including decisions to have an abortion or to choose or refuse contraceptives. 

Vermont Proposal 5:

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