Donald Trump won in some states that passed anti-abortion measures.

American voters this week decided to re-elect the person who has boasted repeatedly on the manual creation of a majority in the Supreme Court, which abolished Caviar v. Wadesequentially spreads misinformation about pregnant women having abortions “after birth”, said there must be “some form of punishment” for women who terminate pregnancies, and ruled it was up to the state whether they wanted it. monitor individual pregnancies to find out if women are having abortions.

At the same time, Americans in Missouri, Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Montana, New York and Nevada voted to approve ballot measures that would guarantee abortion rights through their state constitutions. Abortion became legal again in Arizona and Missouri. Both states now provide access until viability (a sometimes misleading term that usually means around 24 weeks or later) to protect the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. Missouri’s total ban was one of the strictest in the country, and its victorious vote was the first since Dobbs that voters had to overturn the abortion ban by popular vote.

Several states where these ballot initiatives received majority support also were easily elected. Donald Trump. That voters would choose both Trump and measures to support reproductive freedom is staggering and baffling. This is a reality that is consistent with another fact: people, no matter how they vote, may one day need abortion or other reproductive care to save their lives.

On Tuesday, this dissonance was obvious. In Montana, more than 57% of voters supported maintaining abortion access in the state. Still, about 58% of voters wanted Trump to become president. Arizonans passed Proposition 139, and although the state has not officially been called into the presidential race, Trump is currently in the lead. Missouri, the first state to officially ban abortion after… Dobbs By decision, nearly 52% of voters enshrined reproductive rights in the state constitution, and 58% of voters chose Trump. And in Florida, where more than 57% of voters said yes to Amendment Four, an initiative that would have repealed the state’s six-week abortion ban (but because Florida requires 60% approval, it failed), 56% of voters chose Trump.

Exit polls show that, although Kamala Harris than Trump, white women – as in 2016 And 2020— more likely to vote for Trump than a Democrat. While it is unclear how many white women or other voters chose to enshrine abortion protections and vote for a man who took responsibility for creating an environment that could turn them around, it became clear after the election that these divisions clearly existed among voters.

The 2024 election, like previous midterm elections, will be remembered as defined in part by abortion. Harris, who has spoken with unprecedented force on reproductive freedom during her campaign, is the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion provider while in office. Her campaign highlighted stories of people who have been denied access to abortion, who have survived sexual violence and who were on the front line in medical institutions throughout the country. For millions of voters this week, abortion was reported to be the number one issue. Four in ten women voters under the age of 30 said abortion is the most important question to their vote. And this is true in swing states as well. A New York Times/ Siena College surveyed registered voters in seven battleground states for the month of August. found that for women under 45, abortion has overtaken the economy as the single most important issue for their vote.

Plan C, an organization that provides resources for self-managing at-home abortions using the pill, released a statement following Trump’s victory: “A second Donald Trump administration is a disaster in the making for reproductive justice. While we can expect the worst for abortion rights, we also know that no matter what, abortion is here to stay.”

Trump, his partner JD Vanceand him cohort of mouthpieces ran coordinated campaign rewrite and distort the former president’s influence in reducing access to reproductive health care for millions of women across the country. Still, his legacy is clear, as is the right’s disdain for abortion and those who try to expand access to it.