The constitutional amendment that aims to guarantee access to the right to terminate pregnancy in Ohio has been fueling misleading claims about how it could influence care abortiongender-related healthcare and parental consent in the state.
Many of these talking points are also included in a state Senate resolution proposed Wednesday, which was the first day of early in-person voting ahead of Election Day on Nov. 7.
The proposed amendment would give Ohioans the right to make their own reproductive decisions. Sponsors say that, considering that Roe v. Wade was overturned last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, the proposal would restore sensible abortion protections that a majority of Ohio voters can support. Last year’s Associated Press VoteCast poll found that 59% of Ohio voters think abortion should be legal across the board.
But critics say the amendment, called Issue 1 on the ballot, would do much more than that. Advertisements describe it as a gateway for girls to have abortions and gender-related surgeries without their parents’ consent. Opponents have also falsely suggested that the amendment would open the door to protecting abusers and legalizing infanticide.
Amendment Protects Ohio’s Right to Restrict Late-Pregnancy Abortions
If the amendment passes, Ohio can continue to restrict abortion beyond the time when the fetus can survive outside the womb. With modern medicine, that point, known as the viability point, is usually around 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy.
However, opponents of the measure argue that the proposal would still allow abortions “until birth” because it lets doctors decide when a fetus is viable or not, and because it has an exception that allows later abortions to protect the life or health of the mother.
“They could have made it clear. “They could have added weeks for viability”said Mehek Cooke, an attorney who works with the opposition campaign, Protect Women Ohio.
Independent medical and legal experts said this argument ignores that doctors have a duty to adhere to medical science.
The original text of the amendment’s sponsors defined fetal viability as the fetus having “a significant chance of surviving outside the womb with reasonable measures.”
“Obviously, it would be unprofessional for a doctor to say that a 9-month-old fetus has no chance of surviving outside the womb unless it had some life-threatening birth defect,” said Dan Kobil, a constitutional law professor at Capital University School of Law in Columbus, Ohio. “The argument offered that doctors have the ability to capriciously define viability as they please is inaccurate.”
Abortions late in pregnancy are extremely rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“People who are having abortions later in pregnancy are those who have incredibly heartbreaking situations, whether it’s some horrible, terrible fetal abnormality that took a while to diagnose, or some maternal medical condition that puts the mother’s life at risk.”said Mae Winchester, a Cleveland-based maternal-fetal medicine specialist.
Experts say the idea of abortions “until birth” ands deceptive in itself. Later terminations of pregnancy involve medication that induces labor early, which is different from a surgical abortion.
“Abortion at the moment of birth literally does not exist,” Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, had previously stated.
The amendment protects people who assist patients, not those who mistreat them
Anti-abortion activists have argued that the amendment “favors abusers” because it protects anyone who “help” someone to exercise their right to make reproductive decisions.
Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, argued in an online pamphlet that the amendment could therefore protect an adult man who abused a teenage girl or a teacher who went behind parents’ backs.
However, legal experts noted that these arguments would not hold up in court.
“I think that is an extremely creative and imprecise reading of the amendment,” Kobil commented.. “Abusers do not help their victims.”
“The idea that an abuser can force someone to abort or carry a pregnancy to term and somehow be protected or safe from punishment is simply inconsistent with the content of the second clause of the amendment.”he pointed.
David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University, said the issue is simple. “Battery is illegal, so battering someone is illegal under Ohio law,” he claimed.
Medical specialists stressed that there is some evidence that people seek abortions because they are in abusive relationships. Research has shown that when women in physically abusive relationships are denied abortion, they are more likely to stay with their abuser.
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Infanticide is illegal. the amendment does not change this
An analysis of the amendment by the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom states that it “opens the door to infanticide” because it would prevent government officials from interfering in the exercise of the right to reproductive freedom.
That analysis questions whether exercising that right includes killing or neglecting a living child.
“Does it include ‘having to care for a newborn’?”asks the analysis by Alliance Defending Freedom. “Does it include the ‘right’ to neglect or abandon the newborn?”
Many jurists affirm that the answer to these questions is a resounding no. Infanticide is already illegal in the United States, they said, and the amendment does not change that.
“That is a total fallacy,” Cohen said.
Legal experts say it’s a stretch to say the amendment addresses gender-related health care.
Those who oppose the abortion amendment say its protections for abortion “reproductive” is unnecessarily broad and could include gender-related health care.
Frank Scaturro, a constitutional lawyer who works with Protect Women Ohio, said that, with that amendment, anything that alters the human reproductive system could be interpreted as a “reproductive decision”.
Supporters say the proposal makes no mention of gender-related health care exactly because it has nothing to do with that.
Ballot text specifies that amendment protects reproductive decisions “including but not limited to” contraception, fertility treatment, continuation of the pregnancy itself, care for spontaneous abortions and termination of pregnancy.
Independent legal experts said it is a stretch to suggest that this also means gender-related health care. That legal theory has not been raised in other states.
Tracy Thomas, a law professor at the University of Akron and director of the institution’s Constitutional Law Center, said the term “decision” could be essential to interpret the text.
“For me, a reproductive decision is the decision to reproduce or not to reproduce,” he commented. “The only word that could be proposed (as linked to gender-related care) is fertility treatment. I think the fertility treatment is in vitro fertilization. It means treatment for the purpose of reproduction.”
The amendment does not invalidate parental consent, although that could be challenged in court
The amendment does not change Ohio’s current parental notification and consent law, which requires minors to obtain their parents’ permission — or a judicial exception in extreme cases — to obtain an abortion.
That hasn’t stopped opponents of the measure from arguing that it will be challenged in court, perhaps someday leading to a decision making the parental consent law unconstitutional.
His argument is based on the use of the term “individual” in the amendment, which opponents say applies to either sex and to both adults and children.
Similar arguments related to parental consent were made before Michigan’s vote last year to codify the right to abortion in the state Constitution, said Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law who works as an advisor to the Issue 1 campaign.
“None of these things have happened.”Hill said.
To be overturned, Ohio’s current parental consent law would have to be challenged in court and overturned by the state Supreme Court, which currently has a conservative majority.
Source: AP
Source: Gestion
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