Anti-abortion advocates in Ohio have condemned a lawsuit filed by abortion-rights proponents objecting to the inclusion of the phrase “unborn child” in the proposed abortion amendment ballot question.
“The radical abortion lobby will stop at nothing, including denying science, to push abortion on demand until birth,” SBA Pro-Life America Vice President of State Affairs Stephen Billy told the Washington Examiner. “Now more than ever, we have a window into the womb through advanced ultrasound technology, showing the developing child through all stages of pregnancy. As science develops, it is impossible to deny that abortion brutally ends the life of a baby in the womb.”
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Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights filed suit against the Republican-led Ohio Ballot Board that voted to use the phrase “unborn child” in the summary of the amendment Ohioans will vote on in November.
The amendment‘s text grants each citizen the right “to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including abortion. Although the amendment states the legislature can prohibit abortion after viability, it further stipulates that an abortion cannot be prohibited in any circumstances if the physician finds the procedure to be “necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is running for Ohio’s open Senate seat in 2024, proposed the adopted language for the ballot summary of the amendment, which contains the phrase “unborn child” four times, including describing the conditions that a physician can determine that an abortion ought to be performed past viability.
LaRose’s summary of the amendment stipulates the provision would “always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician’s determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or health.”
“The ballot language thus unnecessarily introduces an ethical judgment — at what stage of development a zygote, embryo, or fetus becomes a ‘child’ — which is beyond the scope of the measure and about which Ohioans profoundly disagree,” reads the lawsuit filing.
Billy said in response to the lawsuit that “abortion activists want to gatekeep voters from reading the truth, and making an educated decision for themselves, on what this extreme amendment does,” noting that the amendment is “too extreme for Ohioans.”
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Earlier this month, Ohioans voted down a measure that would have increased the difficulty of passing a petition-initiated amendment to a 60% majority.
SBA Pro-Life America said the August vote was not a referendum on abortion but on state constitutional change, adding it would continue to fight against the abortion amendment until November.
