[JURIST] Abortion measures were on the ballot across the country as Tennessee’s Amendment 1, Colorado’s Amendment 67, and North Dakota’s Measure 1 [texts] went before voters during Tuesday’s midterm elections. Tennessee’s new amendment grants stronger power to lawmakers to regulate abortions, clarifying that the right to an abortion is neither secured nor protected by the state’s constitution. It is expected that Tennessee’s legislature will act upon this passed amendment soon by imposing greater restrictions on access to abortions. In Colorado Amendment 67 asked voters to extend “personhood” to unborn fetuses for purposes of the state criminal code and wrongful death act. The measure was rejected by voters for the third time since its initial introduction on the ballots in 2008. Meanwhile North Dakota voters rejected Measure 1, which would have amended the state constitution to specify that life begins to conception.

Reproductive rights [JURIST backgrounder] continue to be a hot-button legal issue throughout the US, with a number of states proposing laws to limit abortions. Last month the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed [JURIST report] an existing state law limiting the use of drugs in abortion procedures. Also last month Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood filed an appeal asking the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reverse a July ruling [JURIST report] that a 2012 state law requiring abortion clinic doctors to obtain hospital admitting privileges is unconstitutional. In August the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division ruled [JURIST report] that Alabama’s recently enacted [JURIST op-ed] requirement [HB 57] that all doctors who provide abortions must have staff privileges to perform designated procedures at a local hospital is unconstitutional.