BY BELLE TAYLOR-MCGHEE | Proponents of the ballot measure to amend Ohio’s state constitution to protect the right to abortion always knew they faced an uphill battle.
Yet they were energized by what voters accomplished in Kansas in summer 2022 and what they gained in California, Vermont, Montana, Michigan and to a small extent in Kentucky a few months later in the midterms. In fact, every effort to protect the right to abortion—or to enshrine the right in the state constitution—was successful, and by respectable margins.
Spearheaded by Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, they mounted a successful grassroots campaign; garnered endorsements from a diverse, broad-based coalition; amassed thousands of volunteers; and successfully gathered 710,000 valid signatures—far more than the required number.
Lauren Blauvelt of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights said getting the necessary signatures to place the abortion amendment on the November 2023 ballot was a huge grassroots-led effort, and it showed that Ohioans want the opportunity to vote to protect abortion access and reproductive freedom.
The GOP-dominated legislature, determined to thwart all efforts to guarantee abortion access in Ohio, moved to try to change the rules, devising a ballot measure to make it more difficult for voters to amend the state constitution: Instead of the 50-percent-plus-one vote requirement (a simple majority), any future citizen-led initiative would require a 60 percent supermajority to pass.
Taking it one step further, Republican lawmakers voted to place this rule change, known as Issue 1, on the ballot in an election scheduled for Aug. 8—so that the new requirement would be in place when Ohio votes on the abortion-rights amendment. The abortion amendment’s fate now hinged on first defeating Issue 1 in an off-year special election expected to have low voter turnout.
But abortion-rights advocates pledged to meet both challenges. They campaigned strongly against Issue 1, and by a 14-point margin Ohio voters defeated the rules-change measure‚ meaning the abortion-rights amendment can pass with a simple majority.
At the same time, polling data leaned heavily in the amendment’s favor: About 58 percent of Ohioans support adding the right to abortion to their state constitution, with 32 percent opposed and 10 percent undecided.
“Based on what I have seen in Ohio, and how I know that Ohioans are in support of not having the government making their medical decisions for them … and having the right to access abortion, and just the breadth of groups that are in support of this, I believe that we will be successful in November,” said Dr. Lauren Beene, executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.
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