Ohioans have two opportunities to protect parental rights in the next four months. In August, we must decide on Issue #1, an amendment that will protect the Ohio Constitution from being too easily tampered with. Issue #1 accomplishes that protection by raising the bar for the passage of an amendment ballot initiative from fifty percent to sixty. This helps to protect our Constitution from being crowbarred by special interests and the progressive movement. I have already exposed the deceptive claims of those opposing Issue #1 and have written on why you should vote YES on Issue #1 in AUGUST. You can read that article here.
In November, the ballot will contain another proposal to amend the Ohio State Constitution. This amendment is entitled, The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety. I’m urging Ohioans to VOTE NO to this amendment initiative IN NOVEMBER. This amendment would be a disaster to parents and children if it should pass.
A brief examination of the actual text of the proposed amendment will easily show why this amendment is a really, really bad idea. Here’s the first paragraph:
Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on:
contraception;
fertility treatment;
continuing one's own pregnancy;
miscarriage care; and
abortion.
Let’s examine it part by part:
Notice that while there are five specific areas of “reproductive decisions” identified, the explicit language opens it up to other not-identified areas of “reproductive decisions” when it says “including but not limited to”. What might those other areas include? Gender transition is one obvious answer.
Notice that there is no definition of the age of the individual covered by this amendment. It simply says, “every individual.” According to this amendment, a minor, a child of any age, has the right to “make and carry out” their own reproductive decisions. This means your twelve-year-old daughter has a right to an abortion, no matter what you as a parent might say or do. You are out of the picture. It means your seven-year-old son has a right to decide to transition as a girl—no matter what you as a parent might say or do.
Am I manipulating you with a scare tactic? No, indeed. Haven’t you been reading the news about what is ALREADY HAPPENING? Anyone who follows the news knows that the progressive movement has been successful in erasing parent’s rights in the matter of abortions, gender identity, and gender transitions of their children, aided and abetted by progressive school boards. School districts are hiding from parents their children’s attempts to transition. Parents are being accused of child abuse if they refuse to allow their children to transition, or if they even use the “wrong” pronoun.
No, this isn’t a scare tactic—it’s a warning that in November, this erosion of parental rights will become part of the Ohio Constitution. Unfortunately, this is a matter in which past performance DOES guarantee future results. Parents have no rights in this amendment. And because this is an amendment to the Constitution and not simply normal legislation, if it passes, a court can rule that the amendment invalidates any prior legislation recognizing your rights as a parent in these areas.
By the same token, this amendment makes abortion wide open for any and every reason, at any and every point in pregnancy: “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions”. The restriction placed on abortion in the case of fetal viability, found later in paragraph B, is elastic: if the treating physician believes the mother’s “health” is at stake, abortion is permitted at any point of gestation. The expression, the mother’s “health,” has not in recent years been restricted to her physiological health but has been expanded to her mental and emotional health. This suddenly becomes a “right” to abortion at any point simply if the mother doesn’t want the child.
What about paragraph B? Here’s a portion of the actual text:
The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either:
An individual's voluntary exercise of this right or
A person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right,
unless
the
State
demonstrates
that
it
is
using
the least
restrictive
means
to advance the individual's
health
in
accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based
standards
of
care.
This means a school teacher, guidance counselor, or anyone else, even a boyfriend, could assist your teenage daughter to get an abortion without your knowledge and without your consent—even over your opposition. It means some third party could seek to convince and then assist your minor son or daughter to secretly attempt a gender transition, without your permission and without your knowledge They would face no legal consequences for it.
You might argue that these are extreme slippery-slope possibilities, and that reasonable people would not interpret the law in this wild-west fashion. You’re wrong about that, and I can easily prove it.
Think about this: when it was originally passed, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 was intended to provide women the same opportunity to participate in sports that men had. Those who passed the law knew what a woman was. They never intended the law to enable biological males to compete against women, use women’s locker rooms and showers, etc. And look where we are now, precisely because the progressives HAVE taken the language of the law to an unimaginable extreme.
Regarding the slippery-slope, what sane individual of twenty years ago could have imagined “Drag Queen Story Hour,” or “men chest-feeding babies,” or “pregnant people,” or custom-taylored personal pronouns? Do you really think the progressive moment will stop short of pressing the vague language of this bill all the way to the breaking point? I don’t. They have ALREADY demonstrated they will take the inches given to them and turn them into miles.
For the sake of parents and children, this amendment must be defeated. It will be easier to defeat if you VOTE YES ON ISSUE #1.
VOTE YES ON ISSUE #1 IN AUGUST!
VOTE NO ON THE REPRODUCTIVE AMENDMENT IN NOVEMBER!
