A proposed amendment to enshrine abortion access in the Ohio Constitution is almost certain to appear on the November ballot, after a coalition of reproductive rights advocates submitted the required number of signatures on Wednesday.
The groups, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Protect Choice Ohio, had until Wednesday to collect about 413,000 valid signatures (10% of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial race, under Ohio law) on at least 44 of the 88 counties in the state to have the amendment placed on the ballot.
State officials must now review the signatures for duplicates and other potential errors. (Signatures may be discarded, for example, if the person was not registered to vote at the address submitted or if the person’s handwriting was illegible.)
The groups, however, said they had collected nearly twice the number of signatures needed, more than 710,000, in case any were deemed invalid.
“We know we are going to win in November. We are prepared to put this, to put abortion rights, in the hands of the voters, and we are excited to announce this first victory on it,” Sri Thakkilapati, one of the founders of Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, said at a press conference. Wednesday morning in Colón.
Reproductive rights groups delivered 42 signature boxes to the state Capitol in Columbus and the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who will rule on the filing.
“Those 42 boxes are full of hopes and dreams of bodily autonomy,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of Pro-Choice Ohio, which worked with the groups to promote the measure.
LaRose has until July 25 to formally sign if the measure is placed on the ballot.
If approved, the proposed measure would insert language into the state Constitution that enshrines the right of every person to “make and execute their own reproductive decisions”, including with respect to contraception, fertility treatment, the continuation of one’s own pregnancy, spontaneous abortion care and abortion. It also specifies that the state will not “charge, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate” against those rights.
The proposed amendment specifies that abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability, but includes exceptions to protect the life or health of the mother.
The language used in the amendment has already been approved by the state and state attorney general electoral board.
The measure is designed to counter Ohio’s “heartbeat law,” which returned to his place immediately after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last summer. That law, which effectively prohibits most abortions —but includes exceptions for the health of pregnant women and in cases of ectopic pregnancies— stays temporarily blocked by a state judge.
However, the proposed amendment may need more than a simple majority of voters to pass in November.
That’s because voters will decide on a separate ballot measure in a special election on Aug. 8 that would raise the approval threshold to 60%, making it harder for abortion rights to be enshrined in the state.
In May, the GOP-controlled Ohio Legislature scheduled the August election, which will also allow voters to decide whether groups trying to place measures on the ballot must obtain the signatures of voters in Ohio’s 88 counties, instead of the 44 that are now required.
Reproductive rights groups contend the ballot measures were explicitly designed to make it harder for voters to approve the proposed amendment: The Republican-led measures came just weeks after the groups overcame several key obstacles to getting the amendment on the ballot. electoral ticket.
Public votes have shown that about 59% of Ohio voters support enshrining abortion rights in the state Constitution, just shy of the recently proposed higher threshold.
The placement of the measure is likely to spark a contentious and costly battle.
Officials with the reproductive rights coalition said Wednesday they plan to spend at least $35 million through November.
Meanwhile, Protect Women Ohio, a group that opposes the November measure, said it had committed to spending another $20 million to combat the November measure. That’s on top of the $5 million the group has already spent since launching its campaign in March.
The group on Wednesday called the move “an extreme anti-parent amendment” that was “so unpopular” that groups supporting it “couldn’t even rely on grassroots support to collect signatures.”
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights relied on both paid and volunteer workers to collect the signatures, a common practice for ballot measures on both sides of the aisle.
In a preview of messages opponents could use in their campaigns, Protect Women Ohio also incorrectly claimed that the amendment, if passed, “would allow minors to undergo sex change operations without their parents’ knowledge or consent.” “.
CORRECTION (July 5, 1:33 pm ET): An earlier version of this article misrepresented the two groups leading the signature-gathering effort. They are Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Protect Choice Ohio, not Ohioans for Reproductive Rights and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights.
