Ohio Will Vote on Abortion Rights
Ohio voters will decide in November whether to amend their state Constitution to establish a right to abortion, after state officials said on Tuesday that proponents had submitted over 495,000 valid signatures from voters, more than enough to put the question on the ballot.
Supporters of the measure still face another hurdle. Republicans in the state legislature want to make the amendment harder to approve, and have put up a ballot question of their own that would raise the threshold of voters required to amend the state constitution to 60 percent instead of a simple majority. That question is on the ballot in a special election on Aug. 8; early voting on that amendment is already in progress.
In a statement Tuesday, Lauren Blauvelt and Lauren Beene of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, the coalition behind the ballot measure, hailed the announcement.
“Every person deserves respect, dignity, and the right to make reproductive health care decisions, including those related to their own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion free from government interference,” they said in the statement. “Now that the petition drive is complete, we’re eager to continue the campaign to enshrine those rights in Ohio’s Constitution and ensure that Ohioans will never again be subject to draconian reproductive health care policies imposed by extremists.” Anti-abortion groups portray the amendment as “extreme,” and have argued that it would permit abortion “until birth” and also enshrine a right for minors to undergo gender-transition surgery without their parents’ consent, even though the amendment allows the state to prohibit abortion later in pregnancy and does not include any language about gender transition.
Source: The New York Times
