A ballot measure in New York designed to safeguard protections for abortion and for those most vulnerable to discrimination was passed on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
The measure, known as Proposition 1 and the Equal Rights Amendment, was intended to codify abortion rights in the State Constitution by including “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health care and autonomy” as a protected class.
The amendment bars discrimination based on an expanded set of conditions, adding ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy. The State Constitution had only prohibited unequal treatment based on race, color, creed and religion.
The measure was fiercely opposed by Republicans and anti-abortion activists including a Schlitz beer scion, who spent $6.5 million to defeat it. It was also opposed by the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, which warned that its protections against gender discrimination could create challenges for law enforcement.
Democrats had hoped that the ballot initiative would help boost turnout by energizing voters who care about abortion rights. Public sentiment in New York appeared to be on the ballot’s side: A recent Siena College poll shows that some 69 percent of New Yorkers approve of the amendment.
Republicans blanketed the airwaves with messaging against the proposal.
Some of the most heated attacks centered on the protections the amendment would offer to transgender people — particularly transgender girls, who many Republicans believe should not be allowed to play on sports teams with cisgender girls.
Much like abortion, protections for transgender people already exist in New York State law. The purpose of the amendment is to make it harder for any future legislature to make laws that would erode those protections.
But opponents said the initiative would go further, claiming that it would allow children to obtain gender-affirming care without parental involvement and extend voting rights to undocumented immigrants. Neither is true, according to the New York City Bar Association.
Proponents of the measure, including the N.A.A.C.P., New York Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and State Democratic Party, cheered its passage.
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