Proponents Of Ohio’s Issue 1 Understand The Inhumanity Of Abortion — They Just Don’t Care:
Is not the child in the womb a human being? Does she not have a heart? Can he not feel pain? Does not her humanity move toward a future?
In 1862, a soldier of the 20th New York State Militia, posted to the shore of the Rappahannock, marveled at the crowds of black slaves making their way away from their plantations to Union lines and freedom. In a letter home, he mused, “Is not the negro a man? Warmed with the same sun, hurt with the same weapons, having the same feelings, affections, aspirations that the white man has? Why then should he be a slave to his fellow man?”
I’ll tell you why, Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, declared a year earlier. There is, he said, this “great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
For decades and before, the pro-life movement in Ohio — as in the rest of the county — has asked, like the soldier on the Rappahannock, Is not the child in the womb a human being? Does she not have a heart? Can he not feel pain? Does not her humanity move toward a future?
Ohio has long been the protector of the unborn. In 1834, the Ohio General Assembly passed a law banning abortion, save to “preserve the life” of the woman. In 1913, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed that protection. After Roe v. Wade destroyed the protections of the unborn in all 50 states, Ohio and many of its municipalities attempted to pass limited protective legislation.
But following the shock of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, the pro-life movement set to work to rectify the harm wrought by that fractured decision. Among the states, Ohio has been in the lead in the passage of legislation affirming the humanity of the unborn.
In 1995, just three years after Casey, Ohio was the first state to pass a ban on partial-birth abortion, later repassed when such a restriction was constitutionally approved. A “heartbeat” bill was first brought before the Ohio General Assembly in 2011, and, although defeated at the time, spurred other states to enact “heartbeat” bills. Along with other states, Ohio passed its own such bill in 2019 (which is now enjoined awaiting appeal and decision by the Ohio Supreme Court). Now 15 states have similar “heartbeat” bills. --->READ MORE HERE
Ohio voters approve Issue 1 ballot measure, enshrining abortion rights in state:
Ohioans voted Tuesday night to make abortion rights part of the Buckeye State’s constitution, the latest in a string of defeats for pro-life activists at the ballot box.
With 60% of the expected vote in, the pro-abortion side led 56.1% to 43.9%, a margin of more than 280,000 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast.
The ballot outcome illustrates the thorny nature of abortion politics for Republicans — even in solid red states — as they grapple with how to handle the issue ahead of next year’s presidential and congressional elections.
Issue One specifically asked voters if they wanted to amend the state constitution to guarantee a right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.”
An effort led by Republicans to raise the threshold for approving the amendment to 60% from 50%-plus-one was soundly defeated in August of this year.
President Biden hailed the result late Tuesday, saying in a statement that “Americans once again voted to protect their fundamental freedoms – and democracy won.”
“Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide,” the president said. “This extreme and dangerous agenda is out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans. My Administration will continue to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law once and for all.”
In a one-two punch to the gut of Ohio’s social conservatives, voters also backed legalizing marijuana for residents age 21 and older on a separate ballot question. --->READ MORE HERE
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