Global Courant
A proposed amendment to enshrine access to abortion in Ohio’s constitution is almost certain to appear on the November ballot after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates submitted the required number of signatures on Wednesday.
The groups — Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Protect Choice Ohio — had until Wednesday to collect about 413,000 valid signatures (10% of the total votes cast in the governor’s final race, under Ohio law) in at least 44 of the state’s 88 counties. the amendment placed on the ballot.
State officials must now check the signatures for duplicates and other possible errors. (For example, signatures may be discarded if the person was not registered to vote at the address provided or if the person’s handwriting was illegible.)
However, the groups said they had collected nearly twice the necessary number of signatures — more than 710,000 — in case they were declared invalid.
“We know we are going to win in November. We are ready to put this – abortion rights – in the hands of voters, and we are excited to announce this first victory over it,” Sri Thakkilapati, one of the founders of Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, said at a news conference Wednesday morning in Columbus.
Reproductive rights groups have delivered 42 boxes of signatures to the Capitol in Columbus and the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who will decide on the submission.
“Those 42 boxes are filled with hopes and dreams of bodily autonomy,” said Kellie Copeland, the executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio, who worked with the groups to push the measure forward.
LaRose has until July 25 to formally sign off on whether the measure will pass the vote.
If approved, the suggested measure would insert language into the stands Constitution enshrining the right of every individual “to make and carry out his own reproductive decisions,” including with respect to contraception, fertility treatments, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion. It also specifies that the state shall not “tax, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against” these rights.
The proposed amendment specifies that abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability, but includes exceptions to protect the mother’s life or health.
The language used in the amendment has already been approved by the Attorney General and the state Polling station.
The measure is designed to counter Ohio’s “heartbeat bill.” clicked back into place immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer. That law, which in fact prohibits most abortions, but contains exceptions for the health of the pregnant woman and in cases of ectopic pregnancies, remains temporary blocked by a state judge.
However, the proposed amendment may need more than a simple majority of voters to pass in November.
That’s because voters will take a separate ballot measure in an August 8 special election that would raise the approval threshold to 60%, making it more difficult to entrench abortion rights in the state.
In May, Ohio’s GOP-controlled legislature scheduled the August election, which also allows voters to decide whether groups attempting to post ballots should obtain signatures from voters in all 88 Ohio counties, instead of the 44 now required. are.
Reproductive rights groups claim the measures on the ballot were explicitly designed to make it more difficult for voters to pass their proposed amendment: The Republican-led moves came just weeks after the groups passed several key hurdles to pass the amendment to get on the vote.
Have public polls shown that about 59% of Ohio voters favor enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution — just shy of the newly proposed higher threshold.
The placement of the measure is likely to lead to a contentious and costly battle.
Reproductive rights coalition officials said Wednesday they plan to spend at least $35 million through November.
Meanwhile, Protect Women Ohio, a group opposed to the November measure, said it would spend another $20 million to fight the November measure. That’s on top of the $5 million the group has already spent since the campaign launched in March.
The group on Wednesday called the measure “an extremely anti-parent amendment” that was “so unpopular” that groups that supported it “couldn’t even rely on grassroots support to collect signatures.”
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights relied on both volunteer and paid laborers to collect the signatures—a common practice for ballots on both sides of the aisle.
In a preview of the messaging opponents could use in their campaigns, Protect Women Ohio also inaccurately claimed that the amendment, if passed, would “allow minors to undergo gender reassignment surgery without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”
CORRECTION (July 5, 1:33 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misrepresented the two groups leading the signature-gathering effort. They are Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Protect Choice Ohio, not Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights.
