An Ohio pro-woman and pro-parent group has released a $5 million ad buy to underscore the dangerous and extreme nature of a constitutional amendment championed by abortion and transgender industry giants, including Planned Parenthood.
Incredible news!
Sign up to volunteer with us—the next step is collecting signatures ⚡️💜 https://t.co/wxksKzxMrq
— Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio (@PPAOhio) March 13, 2023
In its 30-second spot, Protect Women Ohio (PWO), a statewide coalition, emphasizes the provisions of the radical constitutional amendment pushed by anti-life activists, including one to abolish parental rights and eradicate the basic health and safety standards that currently protect Ohio women and girls.
In an op-ed Monday at National Review, Carrie Campbell Severino, president of JCN, and Frank J. Scaturro, vice president and senior counsel of JCN and a former special counsel to the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, wrote the proposed amendment by Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights “would effectively obliterate most limits to abortion or sex-change surgery, among its other far-reaching consequences.”
The proposal, which was approved by the Ohio Ballot Board Monday and now enters the process of collecting sufficient valid signatures to allow it a place on the November 7 ballot, would, Severino and Scaturro asserted, “outlaw virtually any restrictions on abortion and all other procedures, including sex-change surgeries, that touch on reproduction, for both adults and minors.”
“It would cancel out not only parental-consent laws but also mere parental notification for minors’ abortions or sex-change surgeries,” the authors continued, “strike down health protections for people of all ages who undergo these procedures, including requirements that a qualified physician perform them; and erase any meaningful limits on late-term abortions.”
This decision means that Ohioans are one step closer to being able to vote for reproductive freedom on the ballot this fall.
Our initiative puts Ohioans back in charge of their own healthcare decisions.https://t.co/ukrR6qllad
— ACLU of Ohio (@acluohio) March 14, 2023
Severino and Scaturro explained the far-reaching consequences of the proposed amendment:
Beyond abortion, the text of the proposed amendment provides more broadly that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to” several categories: contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion. “Reproductive decisions,” however, is a very broad term. By explicitly defining such decisions as “not limited to” the enumerated categories, the proposal establishes its scope as sweeping.
“A natural reading would extend to any medical procedure that involves the human reproductive system, including sex-change surgery,” they noted. “The language also applies to individuals without any age qualification, so the proposal makes no distinction between adults and minors. Additional language would deny parents the right to any intervention on behalf of their children that would discourage them from obtaining the procedure in question.”
A report in September at RealClearInvestigations (RCI) noted that, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood would likely be taking advantage of the “considerable” financial incentives associated with providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones – which, along with transgender surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies, is called “gender-affirming care” by the left.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.
Gender-affirming care saves lives.— Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio (@PPAOhio) March 14, 2023
Planned Parenthood reported a 4,000 percent increase in donations – half from new donors – as the left’s “summer of rage” against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers was underway.
The abortion industry giant now also touts its status of being the nation’s second-largest provider of transgender cross-sex hormones, likely achieved through fearmongering of the now debunked “transition or die” narrative that claims suicidal risk in gender-confused youth is different from suicidal risk among other young people.
In a study published in March 2022, in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, Dr. Stephen B. Levine, of the Department of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University, observed the transgender activists’ suicide narrative makes gender-confused minors “an exception” and “falsely promises the parents that immediate transition will remove the risk of suicidal self-harm.”
Severino and Scaturro observed the proposed amendment is designed to tie the hands of the Ohio state legislature on issues of parental consent and protection of both babies and their mothers and to turn the state into a “haven for no-limits abortion and other procedures.”
“If this amendment makes it to the ballot and Ohioans allow it to become part of the state constitution, their elected representatives in Columbus will be powerless to pass any statute that would undo the damage,” the authors concluded. “If voters do not reject this proposal, they can expect to suffer its extreme consequences well into the indefinite future.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Protect Women Ohio: Fear the Worst Video” by Protect Women Ohio.
