Pro-abortion amendment passes in Ohio

At the Protect Women Ohio election results watch party in downtown Columbus, even the sugar cookies bore slogans of the campaign against Issue 1, Ohio’s ballot measure that would add a right to abortion to the state constitution. “No Issue 1,” “protect parents’ rights,” or “more extreme than you know” read the frosting in red, white, and blue.

But less than two hours after polls closed, word spread around the room that the Associated Press had called the race in favor of the pro-abortion amendment. At about a quarter till 10, Aaron Baer, president of the public policy organization Center for Christian Virtue, read a concession statement from a lectern at the front of the room. Members of the Protect Women Ohio coalition lined up on either side of him.

“We know that Issue 1 does not represent Ohio values,” Baer read. “It took $35 million in out-of-state funding and ads filled with fear and deceit to push the most radical abortion agenda into our state constitution.”

Unofficial results show Issue 1 passed 57 to 43 percent. Mirroring the statements of pro-life groups in other states that lost similar ballot efforts in 2022, the pro-life coalition pointed to funding as a dominant reason for the outcome. Pro-abortion groups outspent pro-lifers by nearly 3 to 1 in the months leading up to the vote. It seems like this did make a difference: Many voters I interviewed Tuesday echoed the talking points of the “Vote Yes” campaign while some hadn’t heard Protect Women Ohio’s primary arguments against the amendment. But, when pressed, others simply didn’t care about the issues pro-life groups campaigned on.

Leading up to election day, the campaign for the amendment called on Ohioans to vote yes to stop Ohio’s “extreme abortion ban.” In 2019, Ohio had passed a heartbeat law, which protected babies from abortion starting at around six weeks of gestation. It went into effect temporarily following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022 until a court order blocked its enforcement. Since that ruling, abortions have been legal in Ohio until 22 weeks. But most voters I interviewed—both supporters and opponents of the amendment—didn’t know that.

One voter at a precinct in Columbus told me she thought abortions were illegal. Others I talked to said they believed it was only legal under certain medical conditions, and several thought the heartbeat law was still in effect.

Some pro-Issue 1 voters also mentioned supporting women who choose to abort their babies in cases including rape as another motivation for their votes, echoing the pro-abortion campaign that trashed Ohio’s heartbeat law for not including rape and incest exceptions. “I don’t think a woman should have to be forced to carry a child to term in those circumstances,” said Lisa LaSalle, 44, at the same precinct in Columbus.

For Delaware County voter Ashley Baxter, her vote on Issue 1 was personal. She said she had a miscarriage while the heartbeat law was in effect. She needed a dilation and curettage procedure, which is also used to kill living babies in abortion, to remove the dead baby’s remains. But her insurance company denied her claim. “My OBGYN had to submit a lot of medical records to prove that it was medically necessary,” Baxter said. She voted yes “because I feel like we should have the right to make decisions about our own bodies. And in the case of a miscarriage, if you need medical assistance, that should be your option.”

At Tuesday night’s watch party, longtime pro-lifer and Heartbeat International board chair Peggy Hartshorn suggested Baxter’s experience could have had little to do with the heartbeat law. “It’s common practice for insurance companies to routinely deny things that they actually do cover,” Hartshorn said, citing her husband’s experience with denied claims for other medical expenses.

Also at the watch party, Protect Women Ohio spokeswoman Amy Natoce said “miscarriage care is absolutely available in Ohio. It always has been and it always will be—it is completely unaffected by abortion law.” She blamed confusion about the legal situation in Ohio on Issue 1’s supporters.

“They’ve been running ads, misleading Ohioans about what current abortion law is about, telling Ohioans we don’t have miscarriage care—which is not true—telling Ohioans we don’t have access to contraception, which is not true,” Natoce said. “And unfortunately, voters hear those lies.”

Meanwhile, some voters I interviewed had not heard the pro-life coalition’s concerns about the amendment, which included the warning that the law could upend the existing parental notification requirement for minors seeking abortions and the ban on partial-birth abortions. While many voters cited concerns about these laws as reasons contributing to their no votes, some yes voters agreed the parental notification law should remain in place but didn’t believe the amendment puts that requirement in jeopardy.

Some polling suggests that parental notification laws are popular even among pro-abortion voters, and partial-birth abortions have been historically unpopular with Americans. But some voters had no problem with the idea of Ohio discarding either of the state’s current pro-life laws on these issues.

Columbus voter Joey Boggs, 29, said he hadn’t heard the concerns about the amendment allowing partial-birth abortions. “But again, I think that should be [left] to the family’s decision if the doctor recommends something like that, if it’s affecting the woman’s health before she gives birth,” he said. “I think there’s too many factors to just limit it to one thing.”

Delaware County voter Jennifer Christ, 40, said partial-birth abortions only happen “if there is an extreme medical situation … so I don’t think that there’s a need to ban it.”

Christ also said she would like to see the pro-abortion amendment discard the state’s parental notification requirement. “Yes, I would be okay with that,” she said. “I mean, I am a parent. And so I understand wanting to know anything that’s going on with your child, especially a large medical decision. But at the same time, I also know that that would put a lot of girls in a dangerous situation, if they weren’t comfortable with their families knowing things.”

Natoce from Protect Women Ohio said the pro-abortion groups funding Issue 1 have made no secret that they believe laws like the parental consent requirement should be abolished. Now that Issue 1 has passed, pro-lifers in Ohio expect these groups to chip away at remaining protections in the state.

“Issue 1 ties the hands of our legislature in many ways, which is why we worked so hard as a state to defeat it,” Natoce said to reporters after the pro-life coalition conceded the race. “Our legislature is pro-life, we have a pro-life governor, attorney general, statewide elected officials, and they’ll continue to do what they can within the bounds of this amendment to protect life.”