Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) urged Ohioans to vote “no” on a ballot measure that would circumvent state law and allow unrestricted abortion access.
Ohioans will see Issue 1 on their ballot in November, which would cancel abortion restrictions in the state. Critics also suggest the measure is broadly worded to allow children to obtain abortions and sex-change operations without parental consent.
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“They will say this is all about freedom: ‘It’s all about freedom. We just want people to have the freedom,'” Vance told the Ohio March for Life gathered at the state capital building in Columbus. The Buckeye State Republican spoke about his experience with lower-income women making decisions to terminate their pregnancies.
“It was never about freedom. They were pressured into it, sometimes from a boyfriend or, God forbid, a parent,” he continued. “They felt like they didn’t have any options. They were worried that if they brought a baby into the world, they wouldn’t be able to take care of it. Well, we are here to say that there is a choice: We need to choose life, and we need to fight for life.”
Ohio’s ballot measure comes off the heels of a failed attempt from opponents to increase the bare-majority threshold for allowing constitutional amendments to pass in the state. It also comes after several ballot measures in other states last year all saw pro-abortion rights wins.
Vance said the issue is a societal one that has been ingrained for at least 50 years.
“What does it say about a society, what does it say about our country when we tell young moms and young dads that everything comes before their own children?” he said. “If there’s somebody out there telling you that what’s in your best interest is to get rid of your own baby, they do not have your best interests at heart. They are not on your team.”
“For 50 years in this country, unborn babies were cast aside. We told our society that everything — that education, that jobs and everything was more important than the most vulnerable people in our society. It was a mistake, and we did it for 50 years,” he continued.
The ballot measure is backed by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, which Vance mentioned in his speech, asking, “Why is it that every single time you have one of these radical abortion amendments, it’s always funded by the most powerful out-of-state interests in our country?”
The ACLU of Ohio urges supporters to vote “yes” on the measure, linking to Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights, which says of the amendment, “Decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care, are personal and private and should be left up to women and their families. But here in Ohio, government is making that decision for us. They’ve already banned abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.”
Vance argued that backers want to go beyond Roe v. Wade standards and make Ohio the “most radical pro-abortion state in the entire union.”
“This is not about freedom; this is about control: taking control away from moms and dads and putting it in the hands of bureaucrats and judges, taking the choice to choose life away from our people and putting it in the hands of out-of-state interests,” he said. “Whenever we allow powerful people to prey on women, in our country, or in our world, it’s the newborn babies always suffer next.”
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Ohio’s polls open starting Oct. 11 for early voting and will remain open until Election Day on Nov. 7.
The Washington Examiner contacted the ACLU of Ohio for comment.
