ALBANY – New Yorkers have overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that supporters say will protect gender expression and abortion rights.

Election Day results show that 62 percent of people who voted on Proposition 1, also known as the Equal Rights Amendment, supported it, while 38 percent opposed it.

The New York Constitution already contained prohibitions against discrimination based on race, creed, and religion. The amendment added protections for a person’s ethnicity, age, national origin, disability, and sex, which include pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

While it doesn’t specifically use the word “abortion,” it says it protects “reproductive autonomy” and access to reproductive health care, such as in vitro fertilization and contraceptives.

Critics of Proposition 1 argued that, among other claims, it would give transgender athletes the right to play on girls’ sports teams and allow non-citizens to vote.

A last-minute, $8 million blitz of negative ads appeared to have little impact, other than reducing the yes vote by a few percentage points from where polls showed in mid-October.

“It was really about abortion rights and LGBT rights and protecting people from discrimination, and I’m very happy that it passed,” said Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), who led the amendment through the legislative process to place it on the statewide ballot.

The push for it began not long after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which for decades provided federal abortion rights. The court’s decision, dubbed the Dobbs case, effectively turned the issue over to the states.

But the state Legislature, in approving the amendment’s wording, went beyond abortion to expand it to include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression — fueling much of the criticism.

While New York already had state laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex and gender issues, advocates argued that a constitutional amendment was needed if a legislature and governor in the future wanted to change state statutes.

Krueger said he believes abortion is the primary issue for voters, but not the only one.

“The momentum was very specific to abortion,” Krueger told Newsday. “But there were many others who said, ‘We don’t want someone to come in and reverse the laws we’ve lived under and are happy about.’

The Catholic Church and some religious groups opposed it over abortion and said the amendment “could infringe on the religious freedom of institutions and individuals and threatens the right of parents to make medical and other decisions for their children.”

“Despite this outcome, we will continue to fight the good fight for the protection of human rights, the dignity of the human person, the sanctity of all life, the rights of parents and the preservation of religious freedom,” said Dennis Poust. executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, in a statement.

Since the Dobbs decision, more than 20 states have enacted some bans or strict restrictions on abortion. A handful of states have gone the other way, proposing—and winning approval in statewide referendums—to include abortion rights in their state constitutions.

New York, where Democrats hold firm majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, has been considered a strong abortion-rights state. Republicans and other critics say the proposed amendment isn’t needed here and that putting it on the ballot is a “cynical political maneuver” to boost voter turnout in a presidential election year.

The New York Bar Association, in a review of criticism of the proposal, said it would not “change existing law regarding parental consent or the ability of parents to be involved in decisions about health care or medical procedures for their minor children , including gender-affirming care.”

Meanwhile, “Title IX,” a federal law that governed the issue of sports teams, is being challenged in numerous lawsuits.