Louisiana voters approved ballot issue Amendment 1 which updates the state Constitution to say there is no “right to abortion.”
Amendment 1 was approved, 65.3 percent to 34.7 percent, as of 10:53 p.m. Tuesday night.
The state’s Constitution will be amended to say that “nothing in this constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
State Sen. Katrina Jackson, a pro-life Democrat, authored the amendment, also known as the “Love Life Amendment,” when she was a state representative.
In an op-ed at the Advocate, Jackson wrote the amendment ensures “judges cannot circumvent Louisiana’s body of pro-life laws by finding a right to abortion or the taxpayer funding of abortion.”
In advance of the vote, she warned that, in 13 other states, a state Supreme Court decided that a law that protected unborn babies from painful late-term abortions violated their Constitution.
Jackson observed such was the case just last year in Kansas, where the word “abortion” is not even found in the state Constitution.
“We can’t let that happen in Louisiana,” she said. “We have to keep abortion out of our Louisiana Constitution.”
Jackson said Amendment 1 is “not a ban on abortion,” but “simply keeps abortion policy in the hands of our legislators rather than state judges.”
“If Amendment 1 passes, our Legislature would still have the ability to modify any state abortion law,” she explained. “Therefore, Amendment 1 has nothing to do with commonly debated exceptions to abortion. All of those matters can still be handled in the state legislative process.