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Mountain State Voters to Decide Amendment 1

Organizations Encourage Voter Turnout For, Against Amendment Limiting Right to an Abortion

CHARLESTON — A proposed amendment to West Virginia’s Constitution limiting how taxpayer funds can be used for abortion could have further consequences if the U.S. Supreme Court makes changes to a landmark legal decision in the future.

Voters will have an opportunity Nov. 6 to vote for or against Amendment 1. If approved, it would add the following language to the state constitution: “Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or requires the funding of abortion.”

The West Virginia Legislature passed the constitutional amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 12, on March 5. It passed the state Senate 25-9 and the House of Delegates 73-26. While the joint resolution was opposed by Democratic lawmakers, many conservative-leaning Democrats joined with Republicans to vote for the resolution.

Mary Anne Buchanan, a spokesperson for West Virginians for Life and the Vote Yes on 1 campaign, said the amendment would only prohibit taxpayer-funded elective abortions if adopted by voters.

“West Virginians should vote for Amendment 1 because if they’re like me, they don’t like their taxes paying for things they don’t necessarily agree with,” Buchanan said. “That’s what Amendment 1 is designed to do. It will take the taxpayer out of the equation and it will stop taxpayer funding of elective abortions.”

The amendment is being opposed by a multitude of groups united under the banner of the Vote No on Amendment 1 campaign. Julie Warden, the communications director for the reproductive health organization West Virginia Free, said Amendment 1 gives too much power to lawmakers.

“No matter how you feel about abortion, Amendment 1 clearly goes too far,” Warden said. “It actually paves the way for politicians to pass other restrictive laws that could put women and their lives in danger and leave their medical decisions in the hands of the government.”

While the part of the amendment language saying “nothing in this Constitution…requires the funding of abortion” is aimed at Medicaid funding of abortion, the beginning language saying “nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion” is causing concern among women’s health groups.

“When you’re looking at Amendment 1, it’s purposely confusing,” Warden said. “What they did…when they ran this constitutional amendment and put it on the ballot, they added that wording at the beginning. It sets up women in West Virginia to let the government make their healthcare decisions. It says we have no constitutional right.”

Buchanan said the language for Amendment 1 was based on a 2014 ballot measure in Tennessee that also eliminated the right to abortion from that state’s constitution. According to published reports, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Tennessee constitutional amendment. Opponents were challenging the amendment not on abortion ground, but on how the votes were counted when passed by Tennessee lawmakers. Buchanan agreed that the wording of West Virginia’s amendment initiative was confusing.

“If somebody had asked me, I would have worded it differently,” Buchanan said. “When this amendment passes, the constitution will be neutral on the subject of abortion. It will not be for abortion and it will not be against abortion.”

Another proposed constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 111, would have only prevented public funding be used for abortions, but it included exceptions, “except when the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother.” It was introduced Feb. 7, but it never made it out of committee.

“(Amendment 1) has zero protections for victims of rape or incest, or when the pregnancy puts the woman’s life at risk,” Warden said. “It was basically put on the ballot by politicians who want to take away a women’s state-protected right to have a safe, affordable abortion.”

A law passed in the early 1990s prevented the use of taxpayer funds for elective abortions, but a 3-2 decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that low-income women could not be denied abortions paid for by Medicaid.

“There were three justices out of five that decided that the constitution would secure and protect the right to abortion because it required the funding of abortion,” Buchanan said. “What we want to do is take us back to 1993 when the law that was on the books at that time would be revived.”

According to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, the state Medicaid program paid for 1,560 medically necessary abortions in fiscal year 2017, costing $326,103. Nationally, abortions are at the lowest levels since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the number or abortions dropped below 1 million in 2013. By 2014, the numbers dropped from 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in 1980 to 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women.

Advocates for women’s healthcare in the Mountain State are concerned a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade, and the current turbulence on the state Supreme Court also has these groups concerned.

“We’re looking at a lot of Supreme Court changes federally and statewide,” Warden said. “Let’s just say Roe v. Wade did come under attack in the future. If somehow it was overturned and it came back to the decision of the state, then we would have this in our constitution.”

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