Opponents of Issue 1, an abortion ballot measure currently being voted on by Ohioans, released an advertisement on Friday claiming the amendment would enable sexual abusers.
A pro-life organization called Created Equal released the video in response to a recent ad put out by pro-abortion activists featuring the tragic story of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who was driven to Indiana for an abortion in 2022.
“This horrific case of abuse never should have occurred, and what this young girl and her child have suffered is devastating. But the truth is if Issue 1 passes parents will have no control over this life-changing decision and predators will be free to prey on children with impunity,” Created Equal responded in an emailed press release.
The Created Equal advertisement also features the story of the Ohio 10-year-old, but warns that if Issue 1 passes, it could erase parental notification laws and enable a sexual abuser to “drive your daughter to an abortion and you’d be left in the dark.” The ad will play on television, as well as digital and streaming services, according to the organization.
“Extremist abortion advocates are airing ads filled with propaganda and lies,” Created Equal President Mark Harrington said in a statement. “If Issue 1 passes all restrictions and regulations protecting women and babies that have been enacted in Ohio over the last several decades including parental consent will be wiped out in a single day. Ohio voters must defeat this radical measure.”
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Critics of the ballot amendment have been urgently warning that the measure is about much more than abortion and could be used to decimate parental rights, lead to abortion throughout pregnancy, and even allow minors to pursue sex-change procedures. Some constitutional scholars, as well as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), point to the amendment’s broad language — specifically the use of the term “individual” — to argue that the amendment could be used to allow minors to obtain abortions without parental consent.
The amendment would “establish in the Constitution of the State of Ohio an individual right to one’s own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion.” [emphasis added].
The ballot measure, put forward by Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, a coalition comprised of far-left groups such as URGE, ACLU of Ohio, and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, would also:
- Create legal protections for any person or entity that assists a person with receiving reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion;
- Prohibit the State from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means;
- Grant a pregnant woman’s treating physician the authority to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether an unborn child is viable;
- Only allow the State to prohibit an abortion after an unborn child is determined by a pregnant woman’s treating physician to be viable, and only if the physician does not consider the abortion necessary to protect the pregnant woman’s life or health; and
- 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 ACLU of Ohio is responsible for crafting the broad original language of the proposed abortion amendment, along with other groups such as Planned Parenthood. Members of the pro-abortion coalition have notably long campaigned to end parental involvement laws.
Left-wing fact-checkers have repeatedly asserted that the amendment would not impact parental rights, as have abortion activists involved with the “yes” campaign. But when local media questioned the ACLU of Ohio about whether the language of the measure would undo parental consent and notification laws, the organization vaguely indicated that those laws would not stand if the amendment passes.
“When you pass a constitutional amendment, it doesn’t just automatically erase everything and start over. But it would mean that laws that conflict with it cannot be enforced, should not be enforced,” said Jessie Hill, an attorney for the ACLU of Ohio.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost published his own legal analysis of Issue 1 and found that while the ballot language makes no mention of parental consent laws, “the parental-consent statute would certainly be challenged on the basis that Issue 1 gives abortion rights to any pregnant ‘individual,’ not just to a ‘woman.”’
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
