AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Governor Janet Mills and other leading Democrats are pushing to end future legislative debate over abortions by amending the state constitution to enshrine the right to reproductive health care, just seven months after expanding access to abortions.
Maine is seeking to join four other states that have amended their constitutions to protect the right to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
But the proposal faces another uphill, passionate battle after a closer-than-expected outcome last year in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, which voted along party lines to give Maine one of the least restrictive abortion laws in the country.
Supporters of the amendment say Mainers should have the final say, but it would take a two-thirds vote in each chamber to advance the amendment to a statewide vote, at a time when many Republicans are still angry about last year’s loss.
“There is no way this is going to pass,” said Republican Sen. Lisa Keim of Dixfield. “They should not put this political theater back on stage.”
On Monday, the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, the governor lent her support to amending Maine’s Constitution, saying the state must act to ensure the right to reproductive health care, regardless of party has power.
“As strong as our laws are, they are subject to ever-changing political tides and can be repealed. Therefore, without any such federal protections, it is critical that Maine residents can be assured that reproductive autonomy in the state will be protected to the greatest extent possible – through an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Maine,” she wrote in testimony to the Judiciary Committee.
Maine is among more than a dozen other states considering ballot measures related to abortion this year or in 2026. Most, including Arizona and Florida, would seek to guarantee access, albeit to varying degrees. In Colorado, there are dueling efforts to gain restrictions and access to the ballot.
Abortion questions have appeared on statewide ballots seven times since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a nationwide right to abortion in 2022. In both cases, the party backed by abortion rights advocates prevailed — even in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky and swing states like Michigan and Ohio.
Measures to enshrine the right to abortion are already on the agenda for November 2024 in Maryland and New York. As in Maine’s proposal, they do not use the word “abortion,” but rather refer to “reproductive autonomy” or “reproductive freedom.”
On Monday, the bill’s sponsor in Maine, Sen. Eloise Vitelli of Arrowsic, warned that Maine is not immune from efforts to restrict abortions, noting that there have been more than two dozen proposals in the Legislature in recent years.
“As we see so clearly across the country in state after state, laws can change,” Vitelli told supporters of her proposal on Monday.
That’s why it’s important, advocates said, that Maine joins California, Vermont, Ohio and Michigan, states that made reproductive freedom explicit in state constitutions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s action.
About 100 people supporting the proposal gathered at the State House, along with House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, Senate President Troy Jackson and others, but the tone was different from last year, when larger, boisterous crowds gathered in the halls.
Lisa Kushner of Belfast described her harrowing experience entering a darkened building from an alley to have an abortion in 1966, and she said lawmakers and the people of Maine must take additional steps to ensure this never happens again happens.
“Personal reproductive decisions have no place in state legislatures. Our elected representatives should never orchestrate the reproductive lives of their constituents,” she said. “Mainers deserve the right to vote and resolve this issue,” she added.
The amendment follows a new law that allows abortions at any time if a doctor deems it medically necessary. Maine’s previous law, passed in 1993, made abortions legal until a fetus becomes viable outside the womb, at about 24 weeks.
The emotional debate included a public hearing that lasted 19 hours, thanks largely to the huge turnout of voters opposed to the proposal.
The bill narrowly passed in the Maine House, on a 74-72 vote, after the chamber took an hour-long recess and the vote was kept open for about 45 minutes.
Furious Republicans accused Democrats of political antics, but only a handful of abortion opponents were present Monday. Keim said she was not encouraging opponents of the amendment to come to the State House in a show of force. She called it a waste of time, given the significant hurdles to approval.
Several teenagers were among those who quietly held up signs protesting the amendment.
Kristina Parker, an 18-year-old activist, said many Mainers share her view that abortion is wrong. “This is a proposed constitutional amendment to make personal reproductive autonomy a right, except I don’t think anyone has the right to kill someone,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
