As of this week, citizens of six states will vote on abortion-related ballot initiatives come Nov. 5. Efforts to place similar initiatives on the ballot are underway in five additional states. In many states, pro-abortion efforts are raking in far greater contributions than the pro-life groups opposing the proposals. As much as it would help to change hearts and minds, pro-life advocates could stand to put their money where their mouth is, too.  Keeping Abortion Legal Though abortion is already legal in New York and Colorado, pro-abortion activists are hoping to enshrine abortion access in the states’ constitutions.  In New York, which only limits abortions after fetal viability, the Equal Rights Amendment would expand the state constitution’s ban on discrimination to include “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” The amendment would create protections for women who obtain abortions and has received support from pro-choice Democrats, as well as Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the National Institute for Reproductive Health.   Colorado currently has no limits on abortion, and the Colorado Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage would add a right to abortion to the state constitution and permit the use of public funds for abortions. The initiative needs a supermajority of 55 percent of votes to pass, but support for the amendment is well-funded and well-organized. According to Ballotpedia, Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom has reported $4.48 million in contributions and $3.67 million in expenditures in support of the initiative. By contrast, opposing groups Pro-Life Colorado Fund and Vote No on 89 have registered $1400 and spent just over $200.  In Maryland, too, abortion activists have added the Maryland Right to Reproductive Freedom Act, which would enshrine the state’s permissive abortion laws into the constitution.  (RELATED: Chemical Abortion Enables Democrat Anti-Life Agenda) In Nevada, pro-abortion activists have put the Nevada Right to Abortion Initiative on the ballot, which would grant constitutional protection to the state’s existing laws, which permit abortion up to 24 weeks. As of April 1, the supporting PAC raised over $3.2 million in contributions, while the opposing PAC reported no contributions. The next deadline for scheduled reports is mid-July, though it’s unlikely that the group opposing the initiative can regain lost ground. Challenging Abortion Bans with Direct Democracy For other states, however, pro-abortion ballot initiatives are more than just political theater. Florida voters will weigh in on Governor Ron DeSantis’s six-week ban via ballot proposal this November. The Right to Abortion Initiative would provide a constitutional right to abortion prior to fetal viability.  In April, polling among registered voters in Florida indicated that about sixty percent of voters support expanding abortion access up to fetal viability — the threshold necessary for the initiative to pass. But other polls signaled greater uncertainty about the referendum’s outcome. Data published in April by Forbes indicated that 42 percent of voters planned to vote in favor of expanding abortion access, 25 percent of voters would vote against the initiative, and about 32 percent of voters were undecided.  Unfortunately, American elections generally follow a simple rule: Whoever spends the most money wins. As of last month, the pro-abortion Floridians Protecting Freedom campaign raised $32.26 million in contributions, compared to $270 thousand raised by Florida Voters Against Extremism, the group organized in opposition to the initiative.  Returning to Roe Pro-abortion activists are hoping to circumvent abortion bans in South Dakota, as well. Constitutional Amendment G, the Right to Abortion Initiative, would replace the state’s total ban with the original framework from Roe v. Wade. Under Constitutional Amendment G, the state could not regulate abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, could regulate abortion in the second trimester only when “reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman,” and could regulate or fully prohibit abortion in the third trimester except for when “medically necessary.” (RELATED: Abortion Isn’t Funny) Unlike other ballot initiatives, contributions in support of and opposition to South Dakota’s constitutional proposed amendment are relatively balanced. As of May 15, Dakotans for Health had raised $350 thousand in support of the Roe framework, and Life Defense Fund had raised $267 thousand in opposition to the initiative.  Polling conducted by South Dakota State at the end of 2023 indicated that “there is not a majority in either the pro-life or pro-choice direction on abortion policy.” About 48 percent of voters supported the pre-Dobbs framework, with 40 percent opposed. Though South Dakota’s abortion laws maintain an exception for maternal health, the majority of voters objected to the lack of an exception for cases of rape and incest. Fifty-nine percent of voters strongly supported an exception in that instance, with an additional 18 percent of voters saying they “somewhat support” the exception. Ballot Initiatives Pending Five additional states could place abortion on the ballot in the coming weeks and months. In Missouri and Montana, proposals are awaiting legislative approval by the legislature before they are added to the ballot. In Nebraska, competing groups just submitted the requisite signatures for their respective ballot proposals — one that would create a constitutional right to abortion, and one that would codify the state’s existing 12-week abortion ban in the state constitution. In Arizona, too, pro-abortion activists have submitted twice as many signatures as needed to put the proposal to a vote in November. The only state facing a barrier thus far is Arkansas, which still needed 5,800 signatures on Wednesday afternoon before its July 5 filing deadline.  We’ve heard quite a lot about how this election is a critical juncture for our democracy. That up to eleven states will take a vote on the mass industrialized slaughter of the unborn indicates that our sacred democracy may have taken a wrong turn decades before the 2024 ballots were printed.  Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.  READ MORE by Mary Frances Myler:  Pornhub Blocks Access in Five States with New Age-Verification Laws More Catholics Believe in the Eucharist than Previously Thought Sen. Vance, Rep. Cloud Introduce Legislation to Dismantle DEI The post Six States Put Abortion on the Ballot, With More to Follow appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Lying is certainly nothing new in politics. It is said that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, but politics is assuredly the dirtiest — filthier even than garbageman, mortician or, well, the world’s oldest profession itself. Former President Bill Clinton (while we’re on the topic of sexual promiscuity) perjured himself, leading to his impeachment. Former President Barack Obama, in what PolitiFact called its 2013 “Lie of the Year,” promised that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” And on and on it goes. The corporate media, whose 21st-century raison d’etre is propping up the Regime Party (Democrats) and punishing the Deplorable Party (Republicans), often joins the fray. The Russia-collusion delusion disinformation operation was laundered by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign to seedy “intelligence” firm Fusion GPS and law firm Perkins Coie LLP. For years, the corporate media then dutifully pushed the false narrative. Indeed, it is unclear to this day whether MSNBC has ever read the Mueller report. But after last Thursday’s CNN presidential debate in Atlanta, in which President Joe Biden delivered a catastrophic performance for the ages, there is only one conclusion: The yearslong effort by Biden administration flunkies, Democratic Party poohbahs and pro-Regime media stenographers to forcefully deny Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline will go down as the single greatest lie in American history. And what an assiduous effort it was. For years, Democrats and the corporate media lied through their teeth about the blatant decline of the president’s physical and mental faculties. When Biden fell off a stationary bicycle in 2022, handlers brushed it off as no big deal. When Biden started wearing funny-looking tennis sneakers instead of dress shoes, presumably in order to stabilize his gait and prevent debilitating falls, aides informed us that Biden was just embracing a certain sartorial savviness. When former Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to pursue charges against Biden due to the fact he “would likely present himself to a jury … as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” media apparatchiks denounced Hur as a “Trump plant” in the Justice Department. (Where is Hur’s apology?) After multiple videos emerged of Biden freezing, staring and wandering off, the New York Times called them “misleading”; the Biden White House dismissed them as “cheap fakes.” The Wall Street Journal’s recent story in which reporters interviewed 45 officials who expressed concern about Biden’s senescence was excoriated as a “hit job.” All along the way, costly “gaffes” — such as Biden inadvertently calling for regime change in Moscow during a March 2022 visit to Warsaw — were simply chalked up to Uncle Joe being Uncle Joe. How dare you question hardscrabble Joe from Scranton: nothing to see here! Anything — anything — to prevent the American people from learning the truth. Axios reported last Friday how “close aides have carefully shielded (Biden) from people inside and outside the White House since the beginning of his presidency.” For Democrats and their media enablers, there can be no stone left unturned to protect their precious. The ends always justify the means, after all, just as Saul Alinsky taught. The media’s hubris in thinking it could get away with this is astounding. Biden is the president of the United States. His decline wasn’t exactly a state secret, at least for anyone with functioning eyes and ears. This column two years ago, in lamenting Biden’s “indications of a palpable senility,” concluded that “[t]here is something very, very clearly wrong with the president of the United States.” Really, just how stupid do Democrats and the corporate media think we are? How long did they think they could get away with this gaslighting operation? A Gallup poll last October revealed that 32 percent of Americans trust the corporate media either “a great deal” or “a fair amount.” That seems far too high. These hacks deserve nothing but disgust and contempt. Nor has the persistent media gaslighting for the past two to three years been a victimless crime. The collective victim is us: all of us). America is wildly insecure under the “leadership” of Biden. Xi Jinping is sure to move on Taiwan before year’s end. Who knows what Xi’s friends, from Pyongyang to Moscow to Tehran, might do. Who will stop them, after all? The ultimate irony of it all? The massive lie and disinformation operation to obfuscate the president’s decline has been perpetrated in the name of — you guessed it — “our democracy.” The chutzpah! “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” reads the Washington Post’s masthead slogan, conveniently adopted mere weeks after former President Donald Trump took office in 2017. Come again? We don’t actually know who is running the country right now. It certainly isn’t Uncle Joe. Now that is some serious “darkness.” Never forgive, and never forget, what these lying miscreants have done to us — and to the republic. To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: Democrats Can’t Stand Trump’s Constitutional Immunity The post They Lied to You appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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