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In the Buckeye State, two left-wing abortion activist groups, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, are attempting to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November. If passed by Ohio voters, the amendment would not only prevent any new protections for the unborn in the state, but it would endanger women's health and abolish parental consent and notification laws. Voters must be made aware of the amendment's extreme consequences before it is too late.
Most atrociously, the amendment would legalize aborting unborn children past the point at which they can feel the pain, right up until birth. At 15 weeks' gestation, a child's heart has already beat more than 15 million times. Pain receptors begin to form two months prior to that, and the brain structures and nerve connections are in place by 15 weeks and possibly earlier. This means the child can process pain from invasive, excruciating procedures like abortion by 15 weeks gestation. To ignore this scientific reality is to disregard immense human suffering and commit a human rights abuse of the worst sort. But that's exactly what the Ohio amendment would allow.
The amendment mentions limits are permitted after "viability" but conveniently leaves it to the abortionist to determine whether the child is viable. While the amendment says it allows a health exception for abortions after viability, it uses language that has been interpreted by the courts to include mental, financial, and social health—making it effectively impossible to enforce any protections for children before birth.
Abortion policies this radical only exist in a few places around the world, including notorious human rights abusers like North Korea and China. Ohio must not join the ranks of these countries or some U.S. states run by leftist politicians who advance similarly scandalous abortion agendas.
Making matters worse, the amendment is far more than just an abortion measure. It states that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion" (emphasis added). Clearly, "reproductive decisions" is a very broad term, and is intentionally included to stop any effort to put reasonable restrictions or enforce parental rights on a wide array of other destructive decisions—potentially including sex change surgeries.
Should it pass, this expansive amendment would prevent the state legislature from establishing any measures to protect both mothers and unborn children, a tragedy for both. Americans saw this occur under Roe v. Wade, in fact, when laws that would establish informed consent requirements for mothers were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Justices also invalidated a state ban on partial-birth abortion and even recently struck down reasonable requirements that doctors who perform abortions have hospital admitting privileges—all because of the flawed jurisprudence begun under Roe. It did not even matter that the laws they struck down were aimed at preventing the kind of unspeakable horrors committed by Philadelphia abortionist and convicted criminal Kermit Gosnell. Health and safety protections in Ohio would suffer the same dismal fate in Ohio courts if this dangerous constitutional amendment passes.
Likewise, if Ohio adopts the amendment, the state's supreme court can be expected to go even farther than the U.S. Supreme Court ever did in undoing the state's parental consent laws. After the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down informed consent laws because they lacked an exception by which minors could bypass their parents and get permission to receive abortions from a judge. The Ohio amendment would go even further, outlawing any legal requirement for a parent to be notified about or consent before an abortion—or any other procedure related to "reproduction decisions"—is performed on their child.
Even more egregiously, the Ohio proposal's language prevents the state from stopping anyone, including complete strangers, from assisting minors in obtaining an abortion. This carveout would grant nonphysicians in the state unprecedented legal protection to perform abortion procedures as well as open the door for abusive individuals to pressure women or girls into abortion with impunity.
Under their amendment, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom risk transforming Ohio into a sanctuary for abortion on demand, up until birth. Its passage would be a tragedy for women, girls, and unborn children alike—and state lawmakers will be unable to pass common-sense protections to undo the disaster. Voters must reject this proposal—or else they can count on dire consequences.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Jordan Sekulow is President & CEO of ACLJ Action.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
