In 2023, my home state of Ohio passed an extreme abortion amendment adding language to the Ohio Constitution to create a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions…” regarding contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion. The amendment prevents the state from restricting abortion access prior to viability, and then after viability, the state is also unable to restrict abortion access if the pregnant patient’s treating physician finds it necessary to protect the patient’s life or health. Since health is not defined, it could mean anything, including mild depression, thus opening the door wide for abortion access through the entirety of pregnancy. Age restrictions are not included within the amendment, nor is there a requirement for parental consent. Thus, a sex trafficker or sex abuser can force an abortion on a 12-year-old girl he has impregnated without any legal barrier or reporting requirement.

Prior to passing this extreme abortion amendment, the Ohio General Assembly passed a heartbeat law protecting preborn children from abortion after a heartbeat was detected by a significant majority of 56-40 in April 2023. This heartbeat law contained an exception for a medical emergency that may cause substantial and irreversible impairment to the mother. Unfortunately, a legal challenge prevented this heartbeat law from ever going into effect. Since the ballot amendment was passed in November 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) joined with Planned Parenthood to file an additional legal challenge against the Ohio heartbeat bill. In other words, the will of the democratically elected Ohio legislature is likely to be overturned by a deceptively written ballot measure pushed forward and supported by numerous powers outside of Ohio. So much for democracy!

Some would argue that an amendment placed on the ballot allowing the voting public to either accept or oppose it is the most democratic mechanism available to voters. This premise would be true if all the voters had an equal understanding of the amendment. Unfortunately, we know some voters do not take the time and effort to study ballot amendments prior to walking into the voter box. Instead, they commonly rely on information available across various public channels that may or may not be accurate. Often, it is the side with the most money to spend on public advertisements that will win the argument, simply because they are able to influence voters through their propaganda campaigns. Furthermore, some amendments are purposefully written in deceptive language, requiring careful analysis to reach full comprehension of what the amendment will accomplish.

Ballotpedia analyzed the Ohio abortion amendment readability score utilizing established scoring systems. One of those scoring systems, the Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) test, analyzes the readability of the measure related to a person’s education level. The FRE score for the Ohio abortion amendment was 36, requiring a college-level education to properly understand the wording of the amendment. While the percentage of Ohio students graduating from high school is relatively high at almost 86 percent in 2019, Ohio’s most current data regarding the percentage of high school graduates who matriculate to college within two years is only 53 percent. This matches well with other data showing that the percentage of Ohio adults aged 25 and older with a post-secondary degree is 35.1 percent.  Therefore, less than half of Ohio adults over age 25 (approximately 46 percent) had the necessary education to fully understand what they were voting for. This doesn’t take into account voters less than age 25 who have not completed their education. This also assumes that every voter with the required education level took the time and effort to study the ballot amendment, which is highly unlikely. This means that one of the likely determining factors for how Ohio voters regarded this abortion amendment was the prevalent public messaging surrounding the amendment, reflected by the amount of advertising spending by each side.

The total expenditures in support of the Ohio abortion amendment were more than $53 million compared to the $36 million spent to oppose the amendment, a spending advantage that amounts to 47 percent of all opposition spending. The final results of this amendment vote were that 56.78 percent of voters supported the abortion amendment, while 43.22 percent were opposed. That’s a difference of 13.6 percent. Put another way, if 7 percent of the voters who supported this abortion amendment had instead opposed it, the ballot measure would have failed. The likelihood that at least 7 percent of the voters supporting this amendment had been unduly influenced by the deceptive messaging of the pro-abortion supporters and, therefore, didn’t fully understand the consequences of their vote is extremely high. That’s why America’s founders chose to create a representative democracy in which representatives are elected who will take the time to study and fully understand measures before they vote on them. Ohio’s representative democracy had passed a heartbeat bill to protect unborn life after six weeks, but now Ohio’s voters have been deceived to essentially remove all barriers to abortion throughout the pregnancy.

The pro-abortion forces in our country now recognize an effective path forward to remove all abortion restrictions around the country. It requires spending tens of millions of dollars, but it’s well worth it since that money will be earned back from all the abortions that will be allowed once state amendments are passed. And since these state amendments are extremely difficult and expensive to overturn, it is highly unlikely the state will be able to put any abortion restrictions in place once they are passed.

That’s why our CMDA Advocacy team created resources for our members living in states where abortion amendments are on the ballot this fall. These resources will equip CMDA healthcare professionals to engage and educate the members of their church so they can vote with a full understanding of what each abortion amendment accomplishes. So, if you live in a state with an abortion amendment on the ballot this fall, please take the time to read our email and download the resources and become engaged yourself. If you’ve unsubscribed to our advocacy emails, just let us know you want to re-subscribe at [email protected] and we’ll sign you back up.

It’s the least we can do to protect these vulnerable pre-born babies who represent the future of our states and our nation.