Ohio Pro-Abortion Groups Working Toward Constitutional Amendment on November Ballot

Two pro-abortion groups in Ohio have kicked off an effort to place a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot that would prevent the state from outlawing abortion, Axios reported on Wednesday. 

Protect Choice Ohio and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom have filed the initial paperwork needed to place an amendment on the ballot. The groups have until July 5 to collect more than 413,000 valid signatures from registered voters, and those signatures “must come from voters in at least half of the state’s 88 counties, meaning they cannot all be collected in larger, bluer regions,” the report states. 

If the measure makes it onto the ballot and Ohio voters pass the initiative, the state would be barred from “blocking access to abortion treatment, miscarriage care, contraception, and fertility treatment.” 

“It would allow for abortion to be prohibited after fetal viability is detected, with an exception if a doctor feels the life of the pregnant patient is in danger,” according to the report. 

Christopher Devine, associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton, told the outlet he believes the amendment would pass the way a similar one in Michigan did in 2022.

“If you go back to the exit polls for the 2022 midterms, about 60 percent of Ohioans took a pro-choice position on abortion,” Devine said. “That tells me if you put the issue on the ballot in November, it’s likely to earn the majority vote it needs to pass.”

Ohio Right to Life president Mike Gonidakis told the Cincinnati Enquirer that pro-lifers in the state are “up for the challenge” and “have the resources available to win, guaranteed.”

The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), a network of over 7,000 pro-life medical practitioners that educates on the evidence-based effects of abortion, says the proposed amendment would harm vulnerable women and children. 

“Ohio’s proposed constitutional amendment benefits the abortion industry, not women or their babies. As physicians, we cannot support efforts to strip women (esp. minors & trafficking victims), pain-capable children in the womb, and others of protection against abortion’s harms,” the association said in a statement. 

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the “extreme proposal must be rejected.”

“This proposal is the abortion industry’s latest attempt to force their radical, out-of-touch agenda on Ohioans at the expense of babies and moms, including bringing painful late-term abortion to the state,” Dannenfelser said.  “It would ultimately endanger women and children by eliminating basic health and safety standards, and even cancel the rights of parents who deserve to be informed and consent before their underage daughters would undergo such procedures. This extreme proposal must be rejected.”   

Ohio has a heartbeat law that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. However, a judge blocked enforcement of the law amid an ongoing court case, meaning unborn babies up to 22 weeks old can be legally aborted in the state. That case could eventually reach the Ohio Supreme Court, according to the report.