Ohio Passes Radical Abortion Amendment — By: Church Militant

COLUMBUS, Ohio (ChurchMilitant.com) – Ohio voters have enshrined abortion in their state’s constitution, sealing the death warrant of future unborn babies — and the moral trajectory of the state.

On Tuesday, 1.2 million Ohioans voted to make abortion the law of the state, while nearly 934,000 turned out in an attempt to preserve the rights of the unborn.

An amendment called “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” ushers in not only abortion anywhere, anytime, by almost anyone, but also sex change surgeries for minors and nullification of parental rights.

Jordan Boyd, a writer at The Federalist, called the ballot “a deliberately vague ballot proposal that decrees ‘every individual has a right’ to ‘reproductive decisions’ regardless of age or trimester.” 

Throughout the last day of voting, pro-lifers kept hope that the bill would not pass, urging Ohioans to go to the voting booth to vote “no” on Issue 1. 

One X user posted: “Pray today that the great state of Ohio refuses to legalize abortion until the point of birth. Tell your friends and neighbors to VOTE NO ON ISSUE 1!”

Another posted: “Ohio residents need to vote NO on this. As a Christian, I strongly believe that if Ohio passes this, God’s judgment will be on that state. Abortion is a sacrifice to the devil.”

On Sunday, Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, called the ballot measure too radical for his traditionally red state.

“If you look at Issue 1 — it’s a radical proposal, and whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, it just goes much, much too far,” he said on CBS News’ Face The Nation. DeWine added, “It is a radical proposal and does not fit Ohio.”

In October, GOP U.S. Senator for Ohio J.D. Vance released a video on social media urging voters to vote “no.” Vance, a Catholic, said, “Whenever we allow powerful people to prey on women in our country or in our world, it’s the newborn babies who suffer next.”

Catholic clergy also made moves in the past few weeks to stop the ballot in its tracks. The Catholic Conference of Ohio roused Catholics to take action by posting on its website:

The dignity of life in its earliest stages is threatened by a proposed Ohio Constitutional amendment, to be voted on in the November 7th election, to expand and enshrine abortion at the expense of protections for preborn children and women. As Catholics, we cannot remain on the sidelines when confronted with such a clear threat to human life.

The archdiocese of Cincinnati launched preemptive strikes against its passage. On its website, it provided downloadable information clarifying the confusingly written amendment, prayer cards in English and Spanish and bulletins and promotion of a 54-day novena to defeat the passage. The archdiocese advised: 

Use the resources below at home, work and in parishes to help defeat Issue 1, a radical constitutional amendment on the November ballot that threatens the health and safety of women, the rights of parents and the lives of children across Ohio. Please pray, educate yourselves and others, and Vote NO on Issue 1 this November.

Abp. Dennis Schnurr

The archbishop of Cincinnati, Dennis Schnurr, tried to stem the tide, warning in August, “The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety has no place in the constitution of our state.”

The archbishop continued: “This amendment could harm women by eliminating safety regulations on abortion clinics in Ohio, harm families by removing the rights of parents to consent to abortion or other reproductive decisions of their minor children, and enable the abortion of preborn children in the womb up to nine months.”

A bipartisan group of over 100 Black pastors in Ohio also implored Ohio voters to say “no” to the amendment. They released a letter in October warning of the moral and existential threat it poses to the Black community and communities at large.

As Black faith and community leaders across Ohio who are called to care for God’s people, we urge our fellow Christians, the Black community, and all Ohioans who believe in the inherent value of every person to vote NO on Issue 1 this November. The future of our state, our society, and our race is at stake in this amendment, and we must protect them.

The Black community has been the target of the abortion industry for decades, beginning with the deplorable ideology of racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, whose Planned Parenthood organization purposefully established abortion mills in minority neighborhoods and targeted our communities for abortions. Sanger’s mission was to kill Black babies before they entered the world, and Planned Parenthood and the for-profit abortion industry have allowed that mission to continue to this very day.

Despite the litany of pro-life efforts to stop the amendment, pro-abort powers pumped millions of dollars into promoting it. Powerful national, out-of-state organizations such as Open Society Policy Center, a lobbying group claiming to advance justice and allied with leftist billionaire George Soros, donated $3.5 million to pass the amendment. Sixteen Thirty Fund, a leftist organization in Washington, D.C., claiming to advance racial justice and confront climate change, donated $5.3 million.

Other donations included:

$2.2 million from the American Civil Liberties Union
$2.2 million from The Fairness Project
$1.5 million from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and
$1.5 million from Oklahoma billionaire Lynn Schusterman of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

Ohio’s Black pastors, who issued the plea to vote “no” on Issue 1, wrote presciently of the amendment they described in their letter as “more extreme than Roe v. Wade.” They added, “It will allow for painful, late-term abortions through all nine months of pregnancy — even after an unborn baby can feel pain,” they predicted. “It will permit our children to undergo abortions without parents knowing.”

Read More