Montana’s Supreme Court recently struck down as “unconstitutional” three pro-life state laws: protection of life in the womb after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the guarantee that women would have the option to view an ultrasound or hear the heartbeat of their unborn babies before they had an abortion, and limitation of access to abortion pills.
According to AP News, the laws had also protected women and unborn children by prohibiting online abortion pill prescriptions and instituted a 24-hour waiting period after giving informed consent.
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte had signed all three laws in 2021, regional outlet NonStop Local reported June 11. AP News reported that a judge issued a preliminary injunction against the laws that year, and voters approved an initiative in 2024 to put access to abortion in Montana’s constitution.
The Supreme Court justices said June 9 that the state constitution includes a “right to be left alone” and a right to abortion, AP News reported. The justices also ruled that the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade did not affect Montana women’s abilities to pursue abortions.
NonStop Local reported that Gianforte criticized the ruling, calling the justices “activists.”
“Clinging to a shaky, outdated ruling and failing to account for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions, these activist justices aren’t interpreting the law,” he stated, according to NonStop Local. “They’re overreaching, making law from the bench and rejecting the will of Montanans’ duly-elected representatives who make laws.”
Republican Rep. Amy Regier, who sponsored the legislation that required that pregnant women be given the opportunity to view ultrasounds before having abortions, said that the bill was meant to protect women and facilitate “good, informed consent.”
“My question to Planned Parenthood is ‘what are you afraid of expecting mothers seeing?’” she asked, according to NonStop Local.
According to AP News, the Montana Family Foundation, a pro-life organization, filed a lawsuit June 9 to challenge the 2024 initiative that added abortion to the state constitution. The foundation argued that voters who registered on Election Day could not make an adequate decision on the initiative because the ballot contained only a summary, not the whole text, of the proposal that registered voters received in the mail.
