Important Takeaways:
- 5 reactions to passage of Ohio Issue 1 enshrining abortion right into state constitution
- Ohio voters approved a ballot measure that will amend the constitution to make abortion a constitutional right…
- With 99% of the vote reporting, 56.6% of Ohio voters supported Issue 1, while 43.4% rejected it. The text of Issue 1 declares that “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on (1) contraception; (2) fertility treatment; (3) continuing one’s own pregnancy; (4) miscarriage care; and (5) abortion.”
- Ohio has become the fourth state to approve a constitutional right to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court determined in the June 2022 Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. California, Michigan and Vermont voted in favor of similar ballot measures last year.
- Ohio also differs from the other states because it passed pro-life protections into law, although the six-week abortion ban approved by the state government was put on hold by the courts at the time of the referendum. The pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America estimates that the six-week abortion ban, which is now overruled by Issue 1, would prevent an estimated 14,910 abortions from taking place on an annual basis.
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Important Takeaways:
- Early voting began on Thursday in the Ohio election — a poll which could decide whether or not the supposed “right” to abortion is codified into the state constitution.
- Ohioans have the opportunity through election day on November 7 to vote on Issue 1, which 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.”
- The language of the amendment, which was changed significantly by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) and now includes the term “unborn child,” 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;
- Grants 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 id 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.
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Important Takeaways:
- The abortion provider is wading into transgender care, doling out prescriptions for estrogen and testosterone, including to special needs kids.
- “It’s criminal what Planned Parenthoods all over the country are doing,”
- The nation’s largest abortion provider is eroding the already thin guardrails on gender medicine in America.
- As waitlists swell at clinics like Children’s National, and as concern mounts about the perils of rushed transition, many young people are using Planned Parenthood to skip the line and circumvent the safeguards
- Erica Anderson, a former president of the US Professional Association for Transgender Health, say patients they’ve sought to delay from transitioning have simply turned to Planned Parenthood.
- Planned Parenthood is one of the largest providers of cross-sex hormones in the United States
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Important Takeaways:
- Trump Calls Heartbeat Law Protecting Babies From Abortions a “Terrible Mistake”
- In a weekend interview, Donald Trump called a heartbeat law protecting babies from abortion a “terrible mistake,” earning scorn from pro-life advocates who say Trump can’t be the nominee if he seriously opposes pro-life legislation to protect unborn children.
- In a new interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, the former president denounced Florida’s heartbeat law protecting unborn children from abortion after six weeks when their heartbeat can be detected, calling it “a terrible thing” and “a terrible mistake.”
- Trump also refused to commit to supporting a national law to at least protect babies from abortions starting at 15 weeks.
- NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump: “If a federal ban landed on your desk, if you were reelected, would you sign it – at 15 weeks?”
- “Are you talking about a complete ban?” Trump asked.
- “A ban at 15 weeks,” Welker said.
- “Well, people are starting to think of 15 weeks, it seems to be a number that people are talking about right now,” Trump said.
- “Would you sign that?” Welker pressed.
- “I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” Trump said. “I’m not gonna say if I would or I wouldn’t.”
- “I mean DeSantis would sign a five-week and six-week ban,” he added
- “Would you support that?” Welker asked.
- “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” Trump said.
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Important Takeaways:
- The increases have been particularly significant in states bordering others with bans.
- New Mexico and Wyoming had the largest increase in abortions, with more than three times as many provided in the first half of 2023 compared with 2020. The number of abortions also more than doubled in Kansas and South Carolina in that time.
- Overall, the data suggests that there were thousands more abortions in the states where the procedure remained legal in the first half of 2023 than there were nationwide during six months of 2020 — up from about 465,000 to nearly 511,000.
- Estimates do not include data on self-managed abortions, such medication abortion provided by AidAccess.
- The Covid-19 pandemic may have affected individual attitudes toward pregnancy, and expanded access to medication abortion through telehealth could have affected trends, among other factors.
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Important Takeaways:
- South Carolina’s all-male Supreme Court upholds 6-week abortion ban
- Former Justice Kaye Hearn, whose mandatory retirement left South Carolina without a woman on its Supreme Court, called it “a very sad day for our state.”
- The 4-1 decision means the state’s abortion ban, which Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law in May, can go into effect.
- “The legislature has made a policy determination that, at a certain point in the pregnancy, a woman’s interest in autonomy and privacy does not outweigh the interest of the unborn child to live,” he wrote.
- “As a Court, unless we can say that the balance struck by the legislature was unreasonable as a matter of law, we must uphold the Act.”
- Before Wednesday’s decision, abortions were permitted in South Carolina up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
- The bill that was signed into law this year prohibits most abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected.
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Important Takeaways:
- The huge voter turnout against a special ballot measure in Ohio that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights is setting off alarm bells among Republican strategists who say abortion will be problem for their party in 2024.
- A Republican-backed measure to make it tougher to amend the state constitution to protect abortion was soundly defeated — 57 percent to 43 percent — after more than 3 million Ohioans voted, including 700,000 who voted early.
- Democratic strategists say the huge voter turnout in Tuesday’s election is an early sign that Democratic and independent voters will be highly energized by abortion in 2024.
- “We saw mobilization of voters that hadn’t even voted in 2022. In the early vote alone, there were 30,000 voters who voted in [Tuesday’s] election that hadn’t voted in 2022 and they were largely women and African American women”
- The issue could also come up as a ballot initiative in Arizona, where activists are circulating a proposal to establish a fundamental right to abortion that the state may not deny
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Important Takeaways:
- Report: New Mexico Referring Women to Satanic Temple’s TST Health for Abortions
- In a press release on Tuesday, the New Mexico Alliance for Life announced that it has discovered that the state is actively referring women to the Satanic Temple Health (TST Health) via the state’s hotline, which is funded by taxpayers. The pro-life organization discovered this through what it described as a public records inspection.
- The Satanic Temple’s TST Health, described as a “collaborative of reproductive rights advocates and abortion care providers contracted and directed by The Satanic Temple to advance its Reproductive Religious Rights Campaign,” openly boasts of its goal to expand access for mothers to end the lives of their unborn children. Earlier this year, the Satanic Temple touted the creation of the “world’s first religious abortion clinic,” which includes offerings of “abortion rituals.”
- As Breitbart News detailed:
- TST Health describes the “Abortion Ritual” as a “protective rite” designed to “cast off unwanted feelings” associated with taking the life of an unborn child. According to TST Health, the ritual involves spoken words exclusively and includes reciting the third tenet of the Satanic Temple — “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” — and the fifth — “Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.”
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Leviticus 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
Important Takeaways:
- Most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy will be banned in North Carolina beginning July 1 after the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature successfully overrode the Democratic governor’s veto late Tuesday.
- Abortion is banned or severely restricted in much of the South, including bans throughout pregnancy in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. In Georgia, it’s allowed only in the first six weeks.
- Stricter bans across the South would heighten Virginia’s role as an access point and create a “ripple effect” as people travel from out of state to seek care
- Virginia currently allows abortions in the first and second trimesters. An abortion is allowed in the third trimester only if three doctors certify the mother’s mental or physical health is at serious risk.
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Leviticus 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
Important Takeaways:
- North Carolina’s GOP-led General Assembly overrides Democratic governor’s 12-week abortion ban veto
- North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly moved Tuesday to ban most abortions after 12 weeks, voting to override a veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
- The bill – Senate Bill 20, dubbed the “Care for Women, Children and Families Act” – bans any licensed physician from performing surgical abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy.
- It provides exceptions in the case of rape and incest through 20 weeks of pregnancy or in the event of a “life-limiting anomaly” through 24 weeks.
- It takes effect July 1.
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