Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year.
Currently abortion is not protected in Ohio, which means that we could go to a complete abortion ban, with no exception for rape, incest, or danger to the mother or fetus. There is a proposal that the populace put forward to add a right to reproductive healthcare to the Ohio Constitution. It has already gathered enough signatures and will be voted on in November, but it did not clear the 60% bar that Issue 1 would have set. This was a last minute Hail-Mary pass by extremely hypocritical Republicans to change the rules before the voters of Ohio got a direct voice on reproductive rights. Republicans in Ohio saw what happened when people voted on abortions rights as a single issue in Kansas. They are now willing and boldly showing that they will throw out the democratic principles the US, and Ohio, were founded on in order to prop up a theological government with the intent to punish women simply for not being men.
Issue 1 was about abortions, and it was never anything different.