An Ohio amendment that will determine if abortion can be added as a constitutional “right” received enough signatures to officially be placed on the November ballot, according to the Ohio Secretary of State.
Frank LaRose announced this week that the proposed amendment had received enough valid signatures; the measure needed 413,487 signatures, or 10% of the last governor’s race vote, from 44 counties to qualify. It received 495,938 valid signatures from 55 counties.
In a press release, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, the pro-abortion group pushing the amendment, announced that LaRose had certified the results, though he has publicly decried the initiative. “I hereby certify that petitioners submitted 495,938 total valid signatures on behalf of the proposed statewide initiative,” he wrote in a letter sent to the pro-abortion group, according to CNN.
The Ohio Ballot Board will now receive the amendment and draft the specific language that will appear on the ballot.
Pro-life and parental rights groups have been fighting against the initiative, warning that it is overly vague and removes parental consent for minors to undergo abortions. “As a parent, I could be cut out of these decisions that my child is making,” mother Libby McCartney said in an ad for Protect Women Ohio (PWO). “[S]he could get an abortion or get a procedure done, and I don’t even know about it. That’s what’s scary.”
Though polling has shown that the majority of Ohioans currently support the amendment, the pro-life movement is continuing to fight against it. Amy Natoce, press secretary for PWO, told the Associated Press that they will “continue to shine a light on the ACLU’s disastrous agenda until it is defeated in November.”
“This extreme anti-life, anti-parent amendment from the ACLU provides no protections for the preborn through all nine months of pregnancy and attacks a parent’s right even to know if their child is seeking an abortion or gender surgery,” CEO Peter Range said. “Based upon the reality that the ACLU barely qualified for the ballot, despite spending millions of dollars, it is clear that a majority of Ohioans do not want this extreme amendment. We ask all Ohioans, who love life, to join us in rejecting this extreme amendment.”
