How does abortion translate? Ballot measures are a challenge for interpreters

Reproductive rights measures are on the ballots in 10 states after heated debates over how to describe their impact on abortion — and that’s just in English.

In 388 places across the U.S. where English isn’t the primary language among communities of voters, the federal Voting Rights Act requires that all elections information be made available in each community’s native language.

Such translations are meant to help non-native English speakers understand what they’re voting for. But vague or technical terms can be challenging, even more so when it comes to Indigenous languages that have only limited written dictionaries.

For example, there’s no single word for abortion in the native

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