Abortion opponents in Ohio are spending millions on attack ads targeting a proposed November ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
But their attacks focus on two other issues: transgender rights and parental rights.
Officials with the group behind the ads, Protect Women Ohio, argue the proposed amendment is intentionally worded to allow minors to obtain abortion care and undergo gender-affirming surgery without consent nor parental notification.
Nonpartisan experts say the ads are inaccurate and misleading, while reproductive rights advocates argue they’re misdirection designed to distract voters from protecting abortion rights, an issue on which the public he is not on the side of the anti-abortion movement.
The proposed November measure would let voters decide whether to do so insert language in the Ohio Constitution which enshrines the right of each person “to make and carry out their own reproductive decisions,” including, “but not limited to,” decisions about contraception, fertility treatment, continuing a pregnancy, care of miscarriage and abortion. It also specifies that the state must not “burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against” these rights.
Organizations on both sides of the abortion divide have poured tens of millions of dollars into ads. Officials with the reproductive rights coalition that supports the amendment have said they plan to spend at least $35 million through November, more than groups that oppose it.
But Protect Women Ohio, the biggest anti-abortion spender, has used their ads a to argue this the proposed modification would do to allow Minors undergo “sex reassignment surgery” without “their parents’ knowledge or involvement.” The group has so far committed $25 million to ads, some of which began running in March, that will run through the November election.
The ads claim the “not limited to” wording is a way for abortion rights advocates to expand the measure to provide protections for a wider range of culture war issues, some of which, such as the question of allow minors to undergo gender reassignment. operations without parental consent: Polls indicate voters would be more likely to reject it.
In those ads i about his web siteProtect Women Ohio argues that decisions about a person’s gender identity, including gender reassignment surgery, are an integral part of “reproductive decisions,” a key phrase in the proposed amendment.
He is also aggressively targeting, in particular, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, a civil rights organization that works on a wide variety of issues, including transgender rights. Protect Women Ohio ads and statements they argue that the group’s presence in the pro-amendment coalition is evidence of a push beyond abortion rights.
But there is no mention of transgender rights or parental rights in the amendment. In addition, nonpartisan constitutional law experts say there is virtually no way to legally construe the language to apply to most issues not specifically mentioned in the measure’s language, even when consider the phrase “not limited to”.
“Opponents have latched onto the ‘but not limited to’ language to say that this could provide a constitutional right to, among other things, gender-based care rights. It’s not a legally persuasive argument,” said Jonathan Entin , constitutional law expert and professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve School of Law in Cleveland.
Entin said that over “decades, perhaps centuries,” courts have developed rules about how to interpret legal documents that include lists, including those with “but not limited to” language, that say that language covers things that are only considered “plausibly related” to the specific. mentioned elements.
“Gender-affirming attention is a big stretch of the items on the list,” Entin said.
Rather, Entin and abortion rights supporters said, opponents’ argument is a political one, possibly designed to take advantage of voter attitudes that are far less favorable to providing transgender rights to minors than they are to protecting those rights. to abortion
Kellie Copeland, the treasurer of Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, one of the groups behind the amendment, said, “It’s pushing a false narrative about our campaign. None of the allegations being made in these ads are true. Our Reproductive Freedom Amendment does. It won’t affect gender-related care.”
There’s a reason anti-abortion groups might want to talk about something other than abortion: abortion access is popular, much more so than expanding transgender rights, for example.
The public survey found that about 59% of Ohio voters support enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.
Compared to, this survey, conducted last fall by Baldwin Wallace University, near Cleveland, found that only 25 percent of voters said they strongly or somewhat supported laws “that allow medical professionals to provide medical care to someone under the age of 18 for a gender transition.” Sixty-six percent of respondents said they were strongly or somewhat opposed.
Amy Natoce, a spokeswoman for Protect Women Ohio, said in a series of emails that the group’s message was “well founded,” claiming the proposed amendment was “intentionally written in extremely broad language.”
Natoce said it was “no accident” that “the words ‘woman’ and ‘adult’ do not appear anywhere in the amendment”.
“The language means that minors can obtain abortions and other life-altering medical procedures,” he wrote.
In a separate email, Natoce accused the ACLU and its Ohio affiliate of having a “long and well-documented history of attacking parents’ rights, pushing trans ideology in classrooms, and encouraging gender reassignments to to the children.”
The ACLU of Ohio is one of eight founding partners that formed the Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom coalition. It brings “time and resources” — such as funding, staff, shocks and lawyers — said Gabe Mann, a spokesman for the coalition.
Asked about the attacks, Jocelyn Rosnick, policy director for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement that “the ACLU has spent more than a century protecting personal liberties.”
“Those freedoms are exactly what groups like this are attacking right now, so it’s no surprise that they’re attacking the ACLU along with the protections that Ohio families need,” Rosnick said.
Meanwhile, Protect Women Ohio has used the same strategy in instant ads voters to approve an August ballot measure that could make it harder for abortion rights supporters to amend the state constitution in November. The Aug. 8 ballot measure, known as No. 1, will ask voters to decide whether to raise the threshold of the necessary support for future state constitutional amendments to 60%. Currently, only a majority is required.
In the year since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans across the country have largely struggled to talk to voters about abortion rights.
For example, abortion rights advocates enjoyed a string of victories last year in the six states (even in conservative states like Kentucky and Kansas) where they placed referendums on the ballot that—as Ohio’s proposed measure- proposed enshrining reproductive rights in the state. constitutions
Reproductive health advocates said the results have forced abortion opponents to shape the November election around a different issue.
“These groups have had 50 years to make the case for extreme abortion bans, but people aren’t buying it. That’s why they’re spending millions to spread these lies to Ohioans,” Copeland said.
His group, along with Protect Choice Ohio, submitted the necessary number of signatures to put the proposed amendment on the ballot this month.
State officials are still reviewing the signatures for duplicates and other potential errors, and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose has until Tuesday to formally sign if the measure makes it to the ballot.
