Reproductive rights were on the ballot on Tuesday night as voters weighed in on several abortion-related measures, delivering a largely successful night for reproductive rights advocates encompassed by a historic blue wave. In Nevada, voters approved an amendment enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, permanently protecting access to abortion through the second trimester after a second referendum on the measure. Question 6, which establishes a “fundamental right to abortion”, was leading 62.3% to 37.7% with 86% of Nevada votes counted when the called the race.
The amendment allows the state to regulate abortion after viability, except when medically necessary to “protect the life or health of the pregnant patient”. Virginia voters also approved a constitutional amendment establishing a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom”. This measure also protects access to abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
It permits government regulation in the third trimester while preserving access to abortion when necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant woman. The amendment also establishes rights to contraception and fertility care, among other protections. In Missouri, voters rejected an effort to overturn the constitutional right to reproductive freedom they had approved in 2024.
Amendment 3, which would have repealed those protections, restricted abortion, and prohibited gender transition surgeries and certain other procedures for minors, failed by a margin of 55% to 45%. The proposal, placed on the ballot by the Republican-led legislature, would have banned abortion except in cases of rape and incest during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later in cases involving fetal anomalies. Meanwhile, voters in Idaho, one of the nation’s most conservative states, rejected an effort to repeal the state’s abortion ban.
The result leaves in place Idaho’s abortion restrictions, which took effect in 2022 following the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending the nationwide constitutional right to abortion. Tuesday’s results followed a record year for abortion-related ballot measures in 2024, when voters decided 11 statewide measures, the most in a single year as of 2026. Voters decided 65 abortion-related ballot measures between 1970 and 2025, according to Ballotpedia.
Of those, 44 were supported by organizations identifying as anti-abortion, while 21 had the backing of organizations describing themselves as pro-choice or supportive of reproductive rights. The supreme court’s 2022 decision overturning the nationwide right to abortion gave states greater authority to establish their own abortion policies. Since that ruling, voters in more than one-fifth of states have approved ballot measures protecting abortion rights.
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