I don’t know what Ohio is typically known for - but I do know that it seems its residents want it to be known as a land of abortion.
On Wednesday morning a truckload of petitions appeared at the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. Signatures urged for all pro-life laws in Ohio to be removed, facilitating the state to become an entirely anti-life state.
Two trucks are bringing what petition collectors say is more than 700,000 signatures in support of adding abortion to the Ohio Constitution. They are set to give official comments at a presser 30 minutes from now. pic.twitter.com/dja3bn4YRR
— Susan Tebben (@susantebben) July 5, 2023
The coalition who initiated the petitions, Ohioans United for Reproductive Freedom, want an amendment to be added on the November ballot to enshrine abortion into the Ohio constitution. This would, in essence, make abortion legal in the state up until birth.
The Ohio Right to Life group released a statement following news of the arrivals of the numerous boxes with an estimated 700,000 signatures advocating for dead babies.
The statement pointed out how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) helped facilitate the petitions and insisted, “The language in the proposed amendment would remove all current pro-life laws enacted, including parental consent, and prohibit any legal restrictions on abortion, forcing abortion to be legal until birth.”
The petition states that abortion would only be prohibited after fetal viability but that a “patient’s treating physician” gets to determine if and when a child is “viable.” So, a pro-abort doctor could, in essence, say that a child at 39 weeks and 6 days of gestational age is not “viable” and that an abortion can take place.
The petition for the Ohio constitutional amendment also insisted that everyone can carry out “reproductive decisions” for things like “continuing one’s own pregnancy” and “abortion.” To reiterate, here’s what the petition says:
“Fetal viability” means “the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures. This is determined on a case-by-case basis.
Ohio Right to Life’s Chief Executive Officer, Peter Range, stated, “The ACLU wants to take away parental rights in Ohio, which would enable a minor to be pressured into an abortion or even a sex change operation. This amendment cuts parents out of life-changing decisions involving their kids’ health.” He added, “Not only that, but this amendment would also allow painful, late-term abortion in Ohio with no protections for the preborn. The ACLU just misled hundreds of thousands of Ohioans about their intention to push unlimited abortion and sex change surgeries for minors in our state.”
ACLU Ohio supposedly collected signatures for roughly 12 weeks and reached all 88 Ohio counties yet, its unlikely all those people knew what they were signing. One signature collector even admitted that he was knowingly collecting invalid signatures so he could get paid.
It's heartbreaking that so many Ohio citizens blindly signed something either without knowledge of what it actually supports or just to help someone “get paid.”
It’s also heartbreaking to realize that many Ohio citizens knew the damage an amendment like this would cause and knowingly signed it.
This is a reminder to us all that even though Roe is overturned, the fight for life is far from over.
