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Ohio’s Republican Lawmakers Try To Prevent Abortion Amendment Passing

by | Mon, Jun 5 2023

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Republican lawmakers in the US state of Ohio have approved a bill to try to make it harder to pass a proposed state constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.

Supporters of the amendment first must gather just over 413,000 signatures from at least half of Ohio’s 88 counties before July 5 to guarantee that the ballot on the proposal goes ahead in November.

The amendment would protect individuals’ rights to make reproductive decisions from contraception and fertility treatment to abortion.

The latest bill to try to stop it passing will require a special election in August for Ohio residents to vote on whether to require a minimum 60% support to pass all future ballot initiatives like the proposed amendment.

Currently, just a simple majority is required.

The proposed amendment is receiving about 60% support in the polls despite Ohio being a strongly Republican state.

Similar referenda in other conservative-leaning or closely balanced states have seen between 50% and 60% support, but none has exceeded 60%.

Ohio Republicans passed a ban on abortions from six-weeks of pregnancy in 2019, but that law has been blocked by legal challenges ever since.

The current state limit on abortions is 22-weeks.

Strongly Republican states like Kansas and Kentucky have already rejected referenda for greater constitutional protections for abortion.

Missouri, North Dakota, Idaho and Wisconsin are considering similar measures to those in Ohio to make it more difficult to pass constitutionally protected state abortion rights.

Reuters reports recent polls show many Americans support some limits on abortion, but most voters – including a significant slice of Republicans – oppose severe restrictions or total bans which have multiplied since the US Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the Roe v. Wade precedent on abortion laws almost a year ago.

Republicans did not perform as well as had been expected in the November midterm elections, with strategists in both major parties attributing the Democrats’ strong showing in part to higher support from women who back abortion rights.

The Democrats are already mobilising to make abortion a major issue in next year’s Presidential and state elections in Republican controlled states that could swing the result.