Abortion access is expected to play a central role in the 2024 elections. The preview comes next week, when Ohio voters decide whether to enshrine reproductive rights in their state Constitution. The amendment is the only abortion question on any state's ballot this year, a spotlight that has generated intense attention from national groups and made Ohio a testing ground for fresh campaign messaging — some of it misleading.
They portray the measure — one of the most broadly worded so far — as a way to enshrine Roe-era abortion rights in a one-time bellwether state that has turned increasingly Republican and has passed some of the nation's toughest restrictions on the procedure. That includes a law currently held up by legal challenges that bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, before many women know they're pregnant. That law makes no exceptions for rape or incest.