Abortion remains legal in the conservative stronghold because of a 25-year-old state Supreme Court ruling that protected it under the right to privacy included in the state’s constitution.
So far, most efforts by Montana’s Republican governor and GOP-led legislature to overcome that obstacle have gone nowhere. Montana courts have blocked multiple laws that would have restricted abortion.
It’s “a very daunting hurdle for those who would seek to undermine abortion access,” said Kal Munis, an assistant professor of political science at Utah Valley University and expert on politics in Montana, his home state.
Munis said to outlaw abortion, voters would need to amend the state constitution or elect Supreme Court justices willing to reverse precedent.
But it is abortion rights advocates who have jumped on the chance to amend the state constitution. A legal fight is brewing over a ballot initiative proposed for the November election that would add abortion protections to the constitution.