Montana’s CI-128 Ballot Measure Puts Abortion Rights In The Spotlight

By Aislin Tweedy Community News Service UM School of Journalism Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Montanans will vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Constitutional Initiative 128, advanced by a group called Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, would create a new section of the Montanan Constitution establishing “a right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion.” The initiative would allow the government to regulate abortion after fetal viability, except in cases when the mother’s health is at risk.

In 1999, the Montana Supreme Court ruled in Armstrong v. State of Montana that an individual’s right to privacy under the Montana Constitution provides the right to “procreative autonomy,” including the right to the pre-viability abortion of a pregnancy.

As Montanans prepare to vote on CI-128, the political landscape is abuzz with debate.

Akilah Deernose is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, a group supporting the initiative. Deernose said after the U.S. Supreme Cou...