I’ve had time to examine the materials being distributed by the local Republican Party in their effort to defeat the reproductive freedom amendment (Issue 1) in November. They generally argue four points.
Two of those points are that the amendment would “remove parents’ rights” and that the amendment “enshrines the ‘right’ to sex-change surgery and hormones for minors” without parental consent. But the Ohio Constitution limits the rights of minors. For the proposed amendment to supplant current parents’ rights, the conservative Ohio Supreme Court would have to agree. And lumping gender-affirming care for minors under the umbrella of reproductive health is a stretch at best. These arguments are just trying to divert attention about what the amendment is designed to do: Allow women access to legitimate reproductive health care.
This same paranoia feeds into the anti-trans tropes presented during the Republican’s August Issue One scheme. But again, they are willing to curtail all women’s reproductive rights in order to “protect” trans teens from receiving proper medical care, something not even addressed in either this proposed amendment or the one that was soundly defeated in August.
A third argument in the GOP materials is that the amendment “allows abortion through nine months of pregnancy.” This claim is based on the misogynistic idea that women are acting on a desire to terminate a fetus at the last minute because they don’t want the responsibility of raising a child. But the fact is that the majority of abortions occur in the first trimester, according to the CDC. Nearly 80% of abortions happen at or before 9 weeks gestation and 93% occur at or before 13 weeks. Only 1.3% occur after 21 weeks, and those abortions are performed to save the life of the mother or to terminate a fetus that either will not be capable of surviving outside the womb or that is so deformed that attempting to keep it alive would constitute a horrendous cruelty. In these cases, why wouldn’t we allow a woman to terminate her pregnancy?
A fourth rationale presented in Republican flyers is that the amendment “enables abusers” in that it would protect an “adult man abusing a teenage girl or a teacher going behind a parent’s back” to coerce a young woman into an abortion. But these are manufactured, paranoid hypotheticals and are a poor basis for denying all women the right of bodily autonomy.
Sadly, anti-choice ideologues believe their religious views should be the norm by which all other people live. But current polls reflect the fact that most Ohioans don’t agree with them. Like me, they don’t want someone else’s creed to determine what medical care should be available to women in Ohio. Doctrines are NOT medicinal.
Vote YES for reproductive choice in November.
Tony Marconi
Delaware
