by Ben Pursel

Following the November 7 election enshrining the statewide right to abortion with a 13.24% majority according to the Ohio Secretary of State, Republicans in the Ohio House of Representatives released a statement detailing their efforts to, despite the constitutional amendment, limit access to abortion.

In the statement titled “DECEPTIVE OHIO ISSUE 1 MISLED THE PUBLIC BUT DOESN’T REPEAL OUR LAW” and subtitled with the claim “Foreign Billionaires Don’t Get to Make Ohio Laws,” Representative  Bill Dean (R-Xenia) said, “Issue 1 doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law, in fact, it doesn’t even mention one” and “[The amendment’s language] can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”

Representative Dean’s statements have been criticized as inflammatory and hypocritical with opposition groups citing the six-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine (R) in 2019 with no exceptions for rape and incest and the July 2022 story of a 10-year-old girl from Ohio that, after being impregnated by her 27-year-old rapist, was forced to travel to Indiana to terminate the then 45 day pregnancy. 

Later in the statement, Representative Beth Lear (R-Galena) says that restricting abortion is their “God given right,” and that “No amendment can overturn it.”  Closing the statement, the coalition of Republican Representatives said, “Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative. The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws…” 

Ohio, however, is not the only state to face pushback from anti-abortion groups following a constitutional amendment. The State of Michigan, whose own abortion amendment–Proposal 3–passed on November 8, 2022, is being sued by the National Right to Life Committee, three Republican lawmakers, and others, under the notion that Proposal 3 violates the 1st and 14th amendments as well as the constitutional guarantee to a “Republican form of government” according to The Detroit News.

The 36-page lawsuit, which ultimately requests the supreme court of Michigan put a permanent injunction on Proposal 3, also challenges the Reproductive Health Act–a bill, yet to be signed by Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (D), that seeks to increase access to abortions in the state for where they have remained unavailable otherwise inaccessible.

From states like Ohio and Michigan who recently codified abortion access into their constitutions, to states like Florida and Alaska where pre-existing abortion amendments are under judicial review at the behest of the state governments, abortion continues to be a topic of much contention for not only U.S. voters, but the for U.S. government as a whole.