DOVER (LifeSiteNews) – An effort to add a “right” to abortion to the Delaware Constitution is on pause after failing to receive a necessary vote before the conclusion of the current legislative session. 

Introduced in the state Senate in January 2025, SB 5 proposes an amendment to the state constitution declaring that “Every individual has a [so-called] fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, [so-called] abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care”; which “shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon.”

The amendment would permit the state to “regulate” abortion “after fetal viability, provided that in no circumstance shall this State prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.” The language ostensibly allows late-term abortion to be banned, enabling proponents to sell the amendment as “moderate,” but in practice the conditions would most likely empower abortionists to justify virtually any post-“viability” abortion.

Legislatively amending the constitution in Delaware requires clearing supermajority votes in two successive general election cycles. The bill passed the Senate in March 2025, on a 15-6 supermajority vote. However, Live Action notes that the state’s 2025–2026 legislative session ended on June 30 without the bill receiving the necessary vote in the state House, requiring proponents to start over in the next session.

“This legislature is relentlessly focused on abortion and will surely bring it up again, especially if they gain a supermajority in the midterm elections, which is likely if faithful Catholics choose to sit them out,” said Delaware Right to Life president Moira Sheridan.

Abortion is effectively legal up to birth in Delaware, requiring only a “health or life” pretext after fetal “viability” or a “lethal fetal anomaly.” The state requires most insurance to cover up to $750 a year in abortion costs, and while parental notification is required for teens below age 16, the state advertises judicial bypass options for certain circumstances. Delaware also resists cooperation with law enforcement from pro-life states.

Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions. 

But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states havens for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.

Amendments have been one of the abortion lobby’s most potent tactics to preserve abortion “access” without Roe v. Wade. Up until 2024, it had consistent success since the overturn of Roe using false claims that pro-life laws are dangerous to stoke fear about the issue among the general public. 

After 2020, pro-lifers either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, Kansas, and Ohio, prompting much conversation among pro-lifers about the need to develop new strategies to protect life at the ballot box as well as consternation within the Republican Party over the political ramifications of continuing to take a clear pro-life position.

Ten states had such amendments on the ballot in November 2024. Pro-lifers defeated pro-abortion ballot initiatives in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, breaking the abortion lobby’s two-year winning streak, but amendments to embed abortion “rights” in state constitutions prevailed in the remaining states. Five abortion-related ballot initiatives are either confirmed or proposed for the 2026 midterm ballot.

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