Ohio Republicans are trying to ban abortion by limiting it to six weeks, before women know they are pregnant. The legislature passed a law prohibiting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but a federal judge halted the implementation of the ban. However, people who support reproductive rights want to write them into the state constitution. They gathered more than 700,000 signatures, nearly double what the state requires. They succeeded in getting their referendum on the ballot in November.
The state Republicans want to stop them but they know that abortion rights have prevailed in other red states (think Kansas). So the legislature came up with a new ploy: there will be a special election on Tuesday August 8, to require that any change in the state constitution get not a simple majority, but at least 60% of the vote. Furthermore, any proposal to change the constitution would require signatures from all 88 counties, not the current 44. Obviously they want to blunt the pro-abortion campaigners by making it nearly impossible to get on the ballot.
Republican strategists are hoping that turnout will be low and that the abortion rights side will fail to block the referendum. Polls have shown that some 58% support abortion rights, so they will never pass an amendment if Issue 1 succeeds and raises the threshold to 60%.
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, a nonpartisan coalition of abortion-rights groups, submitted the ballot language earlier this year, kicking off a four-month dash to collect signatures and campaign across the state. Proponents, including state Democrats, ACLU of Ohio and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, anticipate spending upward of $35 million on the effort heading into November.
Opponents have pushed against the measure by arguing that it would allow for gender-affirming care without parental consent, even though such a provision is not in the initiative’s language.
Aside from the abortion issue, there is a question about whether it’s right to impose a 60% requirement to get a referendum on the ballot. Why not let the majority (50% plus 1) decide?
Paul Waldman wrote on MSNBC’s site that the issue is stark: Now Ohio Republicans are trying to duck the will of the voters with some clever maneuvering. The state’s voters will decide on two ballot initiatives in two separate elections in a matter of months. One is explicitly about abortion, while the other is only implicitly about abortion but would go even further, to the very question of whether democratic accountability should exist at all…
Lest there be any doubt, the Legislature scheduled the vote on Issue 1 for a special election in August, when it could be assured a lower turnout. So if it succeeds, the abortion amendment on the ballot in November would have to get 60% to pass. Ohio Republicans are so committed to this farce that the Legislature ignored the law it passed in December banning almost all August special elections. When liberals pointed out the obvious contradiction, the Republican-majority on the state’s Supreme Court ruled the Legislature could simply break the law it passed less than a year ago.
Meanwhile, doctors in Ohio have mobilized against the abortion ban, according to ProPublica.
In her eight years as a pediatrician, Dr. Lauren Beene had always stayed out of politics. What happened at the Statehouse had little to do with the children she treated in her Cleveland practice. But after the Supreme Court struck down abortion protections, that all changed.
The first Monday after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was emotional. Beene fielded a call from the mother of a 13-year-old patient. The mother was worried her child might need birth control in case she was the victim of a sexual assault. Beene also talked to a 16-year-old patient unsure about whether to continue her pregnancy. Time wasn’t on her side, Beene told the girl.
“What if it were too late to get her an abortion? What would they do? And I just, I felt sick to my stomach,” Beene said. “Nobody had ever asked me a question like that before.”
Beene felt she had to do something. She drafted a letter to a state lawmaker about the dangers of abortion bans, then another doctor reached out with an idea to get dozens of doctors to sign on. The effort took off. About 1,000 doctors signed that letter, and they later published it as a full-page ad in The Columbus Dispatch.
Beene felt momentum building within the medical community and decided to help use that energy to form the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights coalition. Now, Beene and the coalition are working to pass a citizen-led amendment to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution. The state’s six-week ban on abortion was blocked by a judge in October 2022.
The group is a part of an emerging political force: doctors on the front lines of the reproductive rights debate. In many states, the fight to protect reproductive rights is heating up as 14 states have outlawed abortion. Doctors who previously never mixed work with politics are jumping into the abortion debate by lobbying state lawmakers, campaigning, forming political action committees and trying to get reproductive rights protected by state law.
Reasons to vote NO on Issue 1:
ARGUMENTS AGAINST ISSUE 1
The following argument was prepared by senators Paula Hicks-Hudson and Vernon Sykes along with representatives Dontavius Jarrells, Bride Rose Sweeney and Dani Isaacsohn…
This amendment would destroy citizen-driven ballot initiatives as we know them, upending our right to make decisions that directly impact our lives. It takes away our freedom by undermining the sacred principle of ‘one person, one vote’ and destroys majority rule in Ohio.
Last year, Ohio politicians eliminated August special elections saying, “Interest groups often manipulatively put issues on the ballot in August because they know fewer Ohioans are paying attention.”
And yet here we are, voting in August on just one question: should Ohio permanently abolish the basic constitutional right of majority rule?
Special interests and corrupt politicians say yes. They don’t like voters making decisions, so they’re trying to rewrite the rules to get what they want: even more power.
Here’s why we’re confident Ohio citizens will resoundingly vote NO:
- Issue 1 Ends Majority Rule: It means just 40% of voters can block any issue, putting 40% of voters in charge of decision-making for the majority.
- Issue 1 Shreds Our Constitution: It would permanently undo constitutional protections that have been in place for over 100 years to check politicians’ power at the ballot box.
- Issue 1 Takes Away Our Freedom: It would destroy citizen-driven ballot initiatives as we know them, guaranteeing that only wealthy special interests could advance changes to our constitution.
- Issue 1 Applies to All Issues: If this amendment passes, it will apply to every single amendment on any issue Ohioans will ever vote on – you name it, just 40% of voters will decide.
We all deserve to make decisions that impact our lives. We must protect our freedom to determine our future, not permanently change our constitution to give up our rights. Vote NO.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Right! But It’s More Than Just Abortion Rights
There’s a lot in the news about Issue 1 and abortion rights. Some voters are deciding how to vote based just on that. But as important as it is for Ohio women to be able to choose what to do with their own bodies, issue 1 is a lot more than that. At root, Issue 1 is about democracy versus authoritarianism and corruption. Statehouse Republicans want to make it easier for them to control us. And harder for us to do anything about it.
If Issue 1 would pass, it’ll certainly be much harder for Ohioans to enact any issue guaranteeing women’s rights. But not just women’s rights–anything that the majority of Ohio’s citizens want.
And—and this is important—if Issue 1 passes, requiring citizens to get over a 60% hurdle when we propose things—with signatures from all 88 counties—those rules won’t affect our gerrymandered legislature. Statehouse Republicans will still only need 50 percent plus 1 to pass laws regulating everything we do. If they get away with ending our rights in whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, no matter how dangerous for the would-be mother, the next goal may be to take away birth control itself. The same religious extremists who are pushing to end women’s rights in pregnancy have pushed for ending all means of birth control in other places.
The folks who want to force unlimited reproduction, talk about a “right to life,” but what kind of life? They don’t want to pay for the health care, childcare, education, and so on that come with more babies. They talk about a “right to life,” but they don’t oppose sending our young people off to questionable wars, they favor capital punishment–which kills innocent people sometimes—and they don’t seem worried about the dangers of childbirth, which kills hundreds of women every year. And they don’t differentiate between a woman choosing pregnancy, versus someone who’s raped. Apparently, pro-Issue 1 Republicans just want Ohio women to produce more kids to make sure there’s enough cheap labor for their factories, farms, and businesses.
And, the backers of Issue 1, who want to make it harder for citizens to make their own laws, have got their sights set on other things we won’t be able to do besides control our own bodies. Their 60% rule would apply to anything else voters wanted to do, like support public schools, protect our parks, raise our minimum wage—or un-gerrymander our State House.
In reality, the Republican politicians running our state government have so distorted our legislative districts that they’ve created almost a lock on lawmaking. We wouldn’t be able to fix that either, because we’d have to get 60 % of the state’s voters on our side—with signatures from all 88 counties–to undo any of their bad works—like when former Republican Speaker Householder and Republican Party chair Borges—both sentenced to jail–gave millions to a corrupt energy company to build questionable and dangerous nuclear plants.
So, if the Republican statehouse politicians take away our ability to check and balance their excesses, the sky’s the limit—for them. They’ll be able to use public dollars for private, religious schools, give away our public park lands for their dirty oil and gas projects, and really just have their way with our state and all of us.
So don’t forget to vote—hopefully “no”—on State Issue 1. And don’t forget to take your photo I.D. when you go to vote. Republican politicians have already made it harder for Ohioans to vote, but let’s not let them take away what’s left of Beautiful Ohio’s democracy.
Comments of Jack Burgess
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Jack-
Do you think the fight against Issue 1 would be made easier, if media and bloggers reported that, among the top 5 funders pushing an Issue 1 “yes” vote, are the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the American Principles Project founded by right wing Catholic activist, Robert P George?
It’s a rhetorical question.
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Media report- The Ohio Catholic Conference in collaboration with Protect Women Ohio ( a group that recently made a $5.5 mil. ad buy to get “yes” votes on Issue 1) sent out 1,000,000 pamphlets.
The Catholic Churches politic against women’s rights.
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I’m glad that women can still cross over to Illinois to get abortions. Don’t move to Indiana!!
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Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office secures monumental pro-life Supreme Court decision
Attorney General Todd Rokita [R-IN] released the following statement regarding the Indiana Supreme Court’s opinion:
“My office promised to defend Indiana’s pro-life law, and we have done that every step of the way. Today, the Indiana Supreme Court certified its opinion rejecting a constitutional challenge to Indiana’s pro-life law, which protects the lives of innocent, unborn babies. This is great news for Hoosier life and liberty. We defeated the pro-death advocates who try to interject their views in a state that clearly voted for life.”
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