President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion White House is celebrating the failure of a ballot measure called Issue 1 in the Ohio special election.
The White House issued a statement late Tuesday evening after Ohioans voted against Issue 1, a measure that would have raised the threshold to pass amendments to the state constitution from 50 percent plus one to 60 percent. While that amendment would have impacted many issues, the amendment was largely viewed as a proxy war over abortion in Ohio. In November, Ohioans will vote on codifying a radical abortion ballot measure into the state constitution, and Issue 1’s passage would have complicated left-wing activists’ push for abortion on demand.
“Today, Ohio voters rejected an effort by Republican lawmakers and special interests to change the state’s constitutional amendment process,” the White House statement reads. “This measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters’ voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions. Ohioans spoke loud and clear, and tonight democracy won.”
The Washington Post called the election around 9:00 p.m., with 39 percent of the vote counted. At that point, 60.5 percent of Ohioans voted “no” on Issue 1, and 39.5 percent voted “yes.” As of Wednesday, with most of the votes counted, 57 percent of Ohioans voted “no,” and 43 percent voted “yes.”
If the ballot measure had passed, it would have also required citizens who want to place an amendment on the ballot to collect signatures from at least five percent of voters from the last gubernatorial election in all 88 Ohio counties instead of the current requirement of 44. It would have additionally eliminated the ten-day cure signature period.
Proponents of Issue 1 said the amendment would have protected Ohio’s constitution for out-of-state special interest groups. Opponents of Issue 1, including the left-wing groups championing the abortion initiative, viewed the amendment as an effort to stop their abortion-on-demand agenda in the state. Even so, many coalition members’ own constitutions require supermajorities to amend their bylaws.
Pro-life and pro-abortion groups are now looking ahead to the November election, where each side will engage in a brutal tug-of-war in an attempt to persuade a simple majority of Ohioans to either protect the unborn or enshrine the “right” to end the lives of the unborn in the state constitution.
Opponents of the abortion ballot initiative are urgently warning that it would decimate parental rights, lead to abortion on demand, and even allow minors to pursue sex-change procedures. Notably, the left-wing coalition members pushing the measure have long campaigned to end parental involvement laws.
The language of the abortion ballot initiative is extremely broad and makes no differentiation between minors and adults, instead opting to use the term “individual.”
It states that “every individual has 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.”
Under the amendment, the state would also not be allowed to:
…directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the state demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individuals health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.
“Sadly, attacks on state constitutions are now the national playbook of the extreme pro-abortion Left,” leading pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in a statement. “That is why everyone must take this threat seriously and recognize progressives will win if their opponents are scared into submission by the pro-abortion Left.”
“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” it concluded.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
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