CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The closest West Virginia voters could come to having their say at the ballot box on whether abortion should be legal in the post-Roe v. Wade era might be in this year’s governor’s race.
State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Huntington Mayor Steve Williams have been leaders and occasional allies in the fight against drug abuse in West Virginia, both working to stem the flow of pharmaceuticals into the state with the highest opioid death rate in the nation.
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But when it comes to reproductive rights, the two could hardly be further apart.
Morrisey, the Republican nominee, has been a vigorous defender of West Virginia's comprehensive ban on abortion, which includes few exceptions. Williams, his Democratic opponent, tried but failed to get an abortion referendum on the November ballot.
Now he is betting that the divide over the issue is larger than Republicans think, even in a GOP-dominated state that voted in support of Trump in every single county in 2016 and 2020.
“As I see it, freedom will be on the ballot one way or another,” said Williams, who has been meeting with independent, Republican and Democratic women unhappy with lawmakers’ restrictions.
Unlike some other states that have taken a vote on abortion following the end of federal protections, West Virginia has no citizen-led ballot initiative process. The only way to get a ballot question is with a vote of the legislature, which has Republican supermajorities in both chambers and ignored a petition Williams submitted with thousands of West Virginians’ signatures.
Amendments to preserve abortion rights have gotten traction even in GOP-leaning states like Kansas and Kentucky, where residents voted in favor of access to the procedure. Even in a state as Republican-dominated as West Virginia, the distinction between candidates could matter to some voters.
As governor, Williams said he would continue to pressure lawmakers to put abortion on the ballot or to lessen restrictions. If they continued to refuse to do either, he said he’d restore access through executive order.
Morrisey says West Virginia is a “pro-life state” and has cited a 2018 vote in which just under 52% of voters supported a constitutional amendment saying there is no right to abortion access in West Virginia. But that vote — during a low-turnout midterm election — took place four years before the U.S. Supreme Court determined that there is no constitutional right to abortion, handing the matter back to the states.
The 2018 vote also had to do with state funding of abortion, which some voters might oppose without wanting access completely eliminated, advocates say.
Not long after that, West Virginia passed its ban — becoming one of 13 states to make abortion illegal.
Morrisey argued that voters can turn lawmakers out if they don’t like what they do.
“My opponent is part of the Biden-Harris far-left movement,” he said. “And that’s not what West Virginians are looking for. ”
But Margaret Chapman Pomponio, executive director of the abortion rights and reproductive health advocacy nonprofit WV FREE, said she has “zero doubt” that West Virginians would vote for abortion rights if they had the chance.
“Lawmakers will not do it because I believe they know that they would lose,” she said.
She worries that people don't know how restrictive the law really is.
After the Dobbs decision, the legislature convened more than once to debate abortion ban proposals. During their first special session in July 2022 that adjourned after lawmakers failed to agree, “the public outcry was intense,” Chapman Pomponio said, with protesters rallying at the state Capitol.
When the legislature was called back in September, the law was quickly approved with no public comment period.
“I think that really does create a sense of distrust, anger and apathy because they did not feel heard or respected,” Chapman Pomponio said. “Why go to the polls if you know that your elected officials are going to ignore you?”
She said West Virginia Free's 501(c)(4) sibling organization — the WV FREE Action Fund — has been reaching out to voters to try to mobilize them ahead of the election and have found that many people don't fully understand how limited the exemptions are.
Adult victims of rape and incest, for example, can obtain abortions in-state up until they are eight weeks pregnant, while child victims have up to 14 weeks. Victims are required to report their assault to law enforcement 48 hours before the procedure, something advocates point out could be a barrier because most victims don’t ever report their assaults to law enforcement.
“We have to continually explain to people that the exemptions have been very disingenuously portrayed by politicians who want the public to think that there’s more compassion in the ban than there is,” she said.
According to AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending on advertising, Democrats have spent almost nothing on the governor’s race, while Morrisey and Republican groups backing him have spent more than $36 million on ads for his campaign.