November 6, 2023

Ohioans vote Tuesday on Issue 1, a referendum question that would write abortion on demand through birth into the state constitution.  Buckeyes: Don’t let pro-abortion advocates lie to you about the extremes of this amendment. 

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This amendment legalizes abortion through birth for any reason.  No restriction on abortion prior to birth would be constitutional in Ohio.

Anybody who claims that is not true is lying.  The amendment pays lip service to the notion of “viability” — i.e., the point at which a fetus is capable of surviving outside the womb, generally about 20 weeks (5 months). 

But the amendment’s “restriction” is no restriction at all.  Why?  Three reasons.

  • The amendment itself carefully does not say when viability occurs. 
  • It does say that determination is up to the person performing the abortion — i.e., somebody who has a vested interest in removing that restriction. 
  • And the amendment says the restriction can be waived in the name of the mother’s “health” — but does not define “health.”  That definition is not self-evident or common sense.  We know from nearly fifty years of Roe v. Wade that the Supreme Court stretched “health” to include emotional and psychological satisfaction.  So if you’d be unhappy that you can’t have an abortion when you want it?  Your “health” is endangered.  That’s not fantasy.  That’s not fiction.  That’s almost half a century of precedents.

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Do you believe that abortion should be legal for any reason at seven, eight, or nine months of pregnancy?  Issue One guarantees abortion at those stages. 

Do you believe that an abortionist should be able to carry out partial-birth abortions?  (A partial birth abortion occurs in the last three months of pregnancy, when the fetus is delivered but for its head, which is then punctured with a surgical scissor.)  Federal law bans that procedure.  Issue One would put Ohio into conflict with federal law.  Perhaps even more importantly, it would protect that barbarism in Ohio.

Sure, abortionists will say “there is no such thing as ‘partial-birth abortion,’” because they don’t like the name of the procedure.  They prefer “dilation and evacuation.”  Po-tae-to, po-tah-to.  That procedure as a way of delivering — and delivering the fatal coup de grâce to an unborn child that is generally capable of living outside the womb — is used and would be protected under Issue One.

I keep writing in this article about “abortionists” performing abortions.  It’s not just because it’s accurate but because, if Issue One passes, Ohio would not necessarily limit performing abortions to physicians.

Many pro-abortion states — California, for example — allow nurses to perform abortions.  Interestingly, California law still requires veterinarians — animal doctors — to perform abortions on animals.  (Apparently, prenatal complications with cows and horses sometimes require them.)  But not on human beings.

Abortionists will claim that abortion is so “safe” a procedure that there’s no reason to restrict performing abortions to doctors.  Do you want an invasive procedure permitted by somebody not a doctor?  Why is abortion always the only “medical procedure” abortionists want no regulations of?