You don’t have to wait another day to cast your YES vote on Issue 1 to protect reproductive rights for Ohioans in the election that takes place Tuesday November 7. Early voting starts Wednesday October 11 @ 8am-5pm. Fill out this application to receive your Absentee Ballot.
The misogynists and freedom-haters on the far right attempted to derail reproductive rights with an August special election (something they previously banned) to require 60% instead of 50% to pass a constitutional amendment starting this November. Luckily, they failed. So now they’re deploying their only remaining weapon: lies.
Groups such as the laughably named Protect Ohio Women and Ohio Right to Life are putting out ads and messages that are 100% false. Why? Because the majority of Ohioans agree with the text of the amendment, they have to tell you it’s about things that aren’t in it.
They’re blubbering about “parental rights,” including claiming it allows minor children to get gender-transition surgery without their permission — something that literally never happens. But Issue 1 has nothing in it about parental rights or gender transition. They might as well be claiming it forces you to feed your child hamburgers when he’d prefer pizza. It’s just made up.
Their other horror story the woman-hating far right is putting out is that the amendment will allow nine-month abortions just as a baby is bring born. The ballot issue specifically bans legislating abortions PRIOR to viability (about 20-24 weeks) and protects women and doctors forced to make choices later in a pregnancy due to medical complications — the reason for almost every late-term abortion. In addition, the amendment protects the right to miscarriage care, contraception, fertility treatment and the right to continue a pregnancy — in other words, to make all your own reproductive choices.
As another sign of the far right’s desperation, sleazy, nakedly partisan Ohio secretary of state Frank LaRose dropped those four items from the ballot language to lead people to believe it only addresses abortion. He also changed the scientific term “fetus” to the religious-belief-driven “unborn child.”
Did he also decide that the November issue would also be Issue 1, requiring a yes vote to protect reproductive rights, while August’s Issue 1 required a no vote? Probably. It’s a great voter-confusion tactic. Don’t be fooled. Issue 1 doesn’t kill nine-month babies and it doesn’t force parents to let their 16-year-olds have gender-reassignment surgery. It just allows women to have control over their lives. And most Ohio Republicans hate that.
Here’s the thing of it: the far-right Republicans in the legislature are chomping at the bit to pass an extreme abortion ban, perhaps even a total ban, and if Issue 1 passes, they can’t. If it loses, and they pass their ban, Ohio will become a poorer, sicker and less educated state: we’re already plummeting in many economic and educational measures, despite the happy talk from Governor DeWine. A glut of unplanned, unwanted babies the legislature has no interest in taking care of will only make that worse.
Early voting runs 8am-5pm Monday-Friday through Friday October 27, with extended hours Monday October 30-Friday November 3, and Saturday November 4 @ 8am4m and Sunday November 5 @ 1-5pm. It takes place at your county board of elections or other location chosen by the board (Another voter suppression tactic is allowing only one early voting location per country, whether your country has a population of 13,000 (Vinton County) or 100 times that (Franklin and Cuyahoga).
Don’t let them get away with this. Vote YES on Issue 1 on or before November 7!