With just days before Election Day, pro-abortion campaigns in Ohio are making last-ditch efforts to get people to vote “yes” for the state’s Issue 1 ballot proposal, which would enshrine radical abortion measures into the state Constitution. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights (OURR), the pro-abortion campaign behind this ballot initiative, has received millions of dollars in financial support to do so from national, out-of-state organizations.
According to NBC4, OURR has “raised more than $39.2 million this year through mid-October and spent $26.2 million,” including more than $20 million in expenses for digital and broadcast advertisements favoring the ballot initiative.
This includes multimillion-dollar donations from prominent groups such as the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a leftist group based in Washington, D.C., that works to “advanc[e] equity and racial justice” and “[confront] climate change,” which donated $5.3 million. Open Society Policy Center, a lobbying group connected to leftist billionaire philanthropist George Soros, donated $3.5 million to the campaign.
Other donations include $2.2 million from the ACLU, $2.2 million from The Fairness Project, $1.5 million from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and $1.5 million from Oklahoma billionaire Lynn Schusterman of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.
OURR has received donations from other individuals, including New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who donated $1 million back in September. Oklahoma billionaire Gwendolyn Sontheim, Abigail Wexner — the wife of Ohio billionaire Les Wexner — and Gov. Jay Pritzker of Illinois are among the other prominent figures to shell out money for this campaign.
Enshrining Abortion in the State Constitution
So what exactly are these organizations and individuals supporting when they donate to the campaign favoring Issue 1? As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd explained, this initiative “is a deliberately vague ballot proposal that decrees ‘every individual has a right’ to ‘reproductive decisions’ regardless of age or trimester.”
Some argue that should the proposal pass, Ohio still could “prohibit abortion after fetal viability.” But due to the general language of the proposal, it “nullifies any such limit so long as a doctor deems abortion necessary for a woman’s health, a standard that is left open to interpretation,” Boyd explains.
In other words, these organizations are donating millions of dollars to a campaign pushing for a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion into Ohio’s Constitution, including after viability so long as it’s framed as “necessary for a woman’s health.”
Intertwined Abortion Network
What’s even more staggering is that these out-of-state donors will not even see Issue 1 on their own ballot come Election Day. As previously mentioned, Sixteen Thirty Fund is based in Washington, D.C., and The Fairness Project, Open Society Policy Center, and the ACLU are based in D.C. and New York too.
Knowing that these groups and individuals are donating millions to a campaign in support of a ballot initiative they will not even vote for shows how intertwined the pro-abortion network is (Kansas experienced the same massive out-of-state funding for a pro-abortion initiative last year). Whether the Ohio proposal passes will not affect their own states’ outlook on abortion.
Groups based in New York are already located where radical abortion policy reigns. As stated plainly on the New York state website, “you can get an abortion up to and including 24 weeks of pregnancy. After 24 weeks, you can still get an abortion if your health or pregnancy is at risk.”
In supporting Issue 1, which would successfully spread this sort of policy to Ohio if passed, these organizations and prominent figures are neglecting to recognize the dignity of the human person that begins at conception. Abortion after viability, under the guise of a doctor’s discretion, violates the right to life preborn children have and brings them to a violent, painful death.
Taking this into consideration, it is up to the pro-life movement to educate those in Ohio — and throughout the nation — on the realities of abortion, the dignity and rights children have in their mother’s womb, and that women facing unplanned pregnancies have a community that will show them true love and support them when they need it most. Through this, accompanied by prayer, we move closer to when ballot proposals like Issue 1 will never see the light of day.
Sophia Corso is a graduate of Le Moyne College, where she received her B.A. in English.
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