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Marianne Dhenin of Truthout reports: “It has been four years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, leaving people in the U.S. to navigate a confusing patchwork of abortion protections, restrictions, and outright bans depending on jurisdiction. Organizers have ramped up efforts to improve access since the ruling, and thanks to that work, measures to protect and ensure reproductive freedoms are expected to be on the ballot in three states come November: Idaho, Nevada, and Virginia.

“When Idaho’s trigger ban went into effect in August of 2022, people needed to talk about it, and we came together informally and then eventually [there was] the idea that, ‘Hey, we need to draft a ballot initiative. We need to raise money for some attorneys. We need to get our act together,’” Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, told Truthout. That organization was founded soon after and has led the campaign to get the Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act Initiative on the ballot this year. The initiative would decriminalize abortion and provide that “every person has the right to … make personal decisions about reproductive health care,” including abortion, contraception, and more…”

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