An Ohio resolution just passed by the State’s House of Representatives, which raises the threshold for constitutional amendments from a simple majority of votes to 60%, could upend a pro-abortion ballot initiative hoping to codify a right to abortion in the state.
Senate Joint Resolution 2 (SJR2) overwhelmingly passed the Ohio House on Wednesday by a vote of 62-37 and would “require a vote of at least 60% of the electors to approve any constitutional amendment and to modify the procedures for an initiative petition proposing a constitutional amendment.”
The measure is set to appear on a special election ballot in August 2023.
“The August election could create a roadblock for abortion rights advocates,” reported WLWT.com.
Pro-abortion ballot measure
Earlier this year, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom joined forces to submit a ballot measure which would enshrine a constitutional amendment in support of abortion in Ohio. Pro-abortion state ballot efforts have been on the rise since June of 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion decision with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” provides that “[e]very individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion” and that “[t]he State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.”
While the measure would limit abortion after “viability,” a time defined as the point when the fetus could survive outside the womb, the measure also claims that this would be determined on a “case by case” basis. In other words, if an abortionist decides that a fetus is not viable, at whatever gestational age, that child can be killed.
The abortion amendment language is ghoulish on many levels, but the smoke & mirrors on “fetal viability” is particularly creepy. It’s defined as there being a “significant likelihood of survival” outside the womb. So, if there’s merely a “likelihood of survival” – abortion away. https://t.co/tYUizRFiub
— Brian Stewart (@BrianStewartOH) February 21, 2023
For the pro-abortion ballot to be successful, supporters needed to gather 412,591 signatures from registered voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by July 5, 2023.
But “[r]aising the threshold in August would mean abortion rights advocates have to collect even more support to get their proposal on the November ballot,” WLWT.com claimed in reference to the newly passed SJR2.
Lawmaker says bill is “democratic”
Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville), who introduced the measure, stood on the House floor before the vote to clarify that “This resolution is a continuation of a debate that’s been ongoing in Ohio for more than 100 years. Over what Ohio’s Constitution – our governing document – should be. What should be in it – what should not be in it. And most importantly for today. how it should and should not be altered,” he stated.
Rep. Stewart claimed that the state constitution “has become far too susceptible to outside special interest groups seeking to alter that document to achieve their own end.”
“Putting this issue in front of Ohioans, that is democratic,” he stated. But some disagreed.
In response, Stewart told the Columbia Dispatch, “It merely asks Ohioans if they want to approve a 60% threshold or not by voting in a free and fair election. If that is really someone’s idea of an attack on democracy, they need to turn off cable news, log off Twitter and come back to reality. It’s not the end of the debate.”
“SJR2 is not a new idea but it is an idea whose time has come,” Rep. Stewart told the House. “So we need to set the record straight on a few misleading attacks.”
“First, SJR2 does not take away citizen’s rights to propose Constitutional amendments by initiative petition. Even once SJR2 is approved at the ballot box, the initiative petition method for Constitutional amendments will be preserved albeit with the guardrail of a sixty percent threshold for approval of amendments,” he stated. “Number two, SJR2 is not unique. Thirty-two states do not permit any Constitutional amendments to be proposed by outside groups. This includes Democrat-led states…”
Pro-lifers hopeful
Created Equal founder Mark Harrington addressed a group of pro-lifers just before the vote on SJR2.
Harrington warned that “all the work that we’ve done over the last several decades, including the Heartbeat Bill, will be wiped out in one single day in November” if voters do not raise the threshhold for approval of a Constitutional Amendment.
“Today is, second to the Heartbeat Bill, one of the most historic days that this legislature will see,” Harrington said, “If we can raise this threshhold to 60% – we win,” he added.
