Abortion was a major issue in Ohio’s election last November, as well as in the special election held a year ago this week.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose even said last summer that the Aug. 8, 2023, special election — which proposed raising the voting threshold for constitutional amendments — was “100 percent” an attempt to stop the reproductive rights amendment that passed last November.
Democrats and reproductive rights advocates said Thursday the fight over abortion rights will continue as 2024 candidates hold differing views on what the future of abortion should look like in the state and country.
Ohio Minority Leader Allison Russo reiterated the message Democrats and others have raised since the anniversary of the Dobbs decisionThe 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave abortion rights to states reversed the national legalization of abortion that had been in place since the 1970s.
“It’s clear that abortion rights will be on the ballot again in 2024,” Russo said at a Thursday news conference organized by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign.
Russo was joined by Dr. Maria Phillis, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Cleveland, Elizabeth Schoetz, campaign director and spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom For All, and Ohioan Kaitlin Rizk, who spoke about an abortion she had five years ago.
“I was very lucky to be able to make this decision on my own,” Rizk said.
After the Dobbs decision was made and the Ohio attorney general rushed to remove the ban on six-week abortions from the legal bind and restore its enforcement, doctors like Phillis, who specialize in high-risk pregnancies, said they were “left to their own devices trying to figure out what we can and cannot offer our patients.”
She added that doctors referred patients to out-of-state facilities, and those patients returned when the state they went to had similar prohibitions on care.
“We were seeing doctors that we were trying to recruit considering retraining and practicing in our state, and we already had huge areas of underserved obstetric care in our state,” Phillis said.
Phillis said she has interviewed doctors who are “drawn to this state” because of its reproductive rights, including abortion rights, which are now part of the Ohio state constitution.
The women spoke on the anniversary of the first edition of Issue 1, a referendum initiative launched last year by legislative leaders and supported by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRosewhich would raise the threshold for passage of a referendum initiative like the one that followed in Issue 1, a constitutional amendment to enshrine reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution.
“We have faced lies, deception and a flood of money spent against us, but that has not shaken the people of Ohio,” Russo said.
The first August bill was overwhelmingly rejected by 57% of voters in a special election, the same percentage that later approved a constitutional amendment on reproductive rights introduced in November 2023.
Opponents of the August initiative, such as Russo, had urged voters to vote against it because it would make it unnecessarily challenging to pass measures like the Reproductive Rights Amendment.
And they said it was planned that way on purpose, the claim LaRose verified when he said at the May 2023 Lincoln Day Dinner in August that “it’s 100% about making sure that a radical pro-abortion amendment doesn’t end up in our Constitution.”
But according to the women who spoke out Thursday, the passage of the reproductive rights amendment does not mean the end of the fight in Ohio or elsewhere.
Russo and the other speakers are focusing on the U.S. Senate race, in which Brown will face Bernie Moreno in November. The Democratic frontrunner’s support, not surprisingly, lies with the incumbent Brown, and abortion rights advocates are urging voters to go to the polls in November.
“The stakes in this November election couldn’t be higher,” Phillis said.
There are still concerns about a nationwide abortion ban that has been discussed at the federal level, although candidates including former President Donald Trump They hesitated publicly declaring their support.
Moreno rejected the idea of a nationwide abortion ban during the pre-election debatebut also introduced a 15-week abortion limit. Moreno has been quoted as saying he is “100 percent pro-life without exception” and was endorsed in June by the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Candidate Fund, as part of a planned $92 million investment in races in Arizona, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, according to a statement was issued when the group supported Moreno.
According to Moreno’s website, he also enjoys the support of Ohio Right to Life, a leader of the opposition campaign against the reproductive rights amendment.
Sherrod Brown, for his part, said in June that he “will always support women’s right to make their own health care decisions.”
Ohioans are watching State Supreme Court Elections see these races as another way to expose the state to legal challenges to abortion laws and regulations, some of which are already the subject of litigation.
There are currently pending lawsuits in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, one of which seeks to: lift the six-week ban once and for all (the execution of which has been suspended because the case is going to court) and another one, aimed at eliminating 24-hour waiting period and mandatory minimum of two visits to receive abortion servicesboth of which are still codified in Ohio law.
Russo said the amendment is a step in the right direction for the state but does not mean the war has been won.
“Even though these rights are written into the constitution, we still have all of the provisions in the Ohio Revised Code that place restrictions on abortion, so a lot of these issues are going to play out in our state courts and in the state supreme court,” she said Thursday.
Even if these lawsuits are upheld and the bills are repealed, it is expected that the Republican Party’s supermajority will continue to pass legislation and actively oppose the amendment’s provisions, the minority leader said.
“Republicans aren’t stupid, they’re not going to do anything before November,” Russo said. “But you better believe there’s a willingness to continue to attack and undermine what voters approved twice last year.”
