Ohio voters approved Issue 1 on Tuesday night. This radical amendment removes all restrictions to abortions. The amendment was carefully crafted to remove parental rights, not only for minors who have abortions but also for gender transitions. The ballot initiative text discusses the amendment’s establishment of “an individual’s right to their own reproductive medical treatments, including, but not only, abortion”, as well as “legal protections to any person or entity who assists a person in receiving reproductive medical treatments, including, but not exclusively, abortion”.

At 7:30pm, less than two-hours after Ohio’s polls closed, the decision was announced. Supporting Issue 1 is leading with 56.24 per cent of the votes, while Issue 1’s opponents have 43.76 per cent.

Issue 1 has removed the abortion question from future Ohioans. It is not possible to repeat the entire process, which would take a lot of time and money. Attorney Megan Wold explained this during a recent press conference about the amendment. State legislators can also create a joint vote resolution, but this would be too time-consuming.

The text of the initiative referred to an especially difficult threshold in terms of the state having to use the “least restrictive means” and allows abortions up to birth. This is because the “health exception” mentioned in the text could mean anything the abortionist chooses to interpret it as. No restrictions also means that the horrific partial-birth abortion procedure designed by Ohio abortionist Martin Haskell could be brought back.

Protect Women Ohio opposed Issue 1 and, despite an impressive effort, it was outspent by abortion-supporting forces such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and others. Secretary of State Frank LaRose opposed Issue 1 and supported Amendment 1 in August, to raise the threshold to pass such initiatives. It failed.

LaRose has warned that it is out-of-state agitators who are pushing red and battleground states to adopt radical pro-abortion initiatives such as Issue 1.

Townhall reported on the initiative, citing legal experts who warned against Issue 1 as well as groups such as the ACLU. The initiative was put forward by groups that don’t believe in parental rights, especially when it comes down to minors having an abortion or going through gender transformations, which may include hormone treatment with its negative side effects as well as sterilization and genital mutilation.

Heartbeat International, a pro-life organization, released a press release shortly after the call. The statement made it clear that “Big abortion won.”

“Big Abortion was the winner, but women, mothers, and babies were losers. Women lost common-sense protections. Parents are no longer able to participate in an important and potentially dangerous aspect of their child’s emotional and medical health. Babies have lost their autonomy in growing as God intended. Pregnancy help is the only way to protect women from being entrapped by abortion profiteers, said Jor-El Godsey.

The second issue, which deals with marijuana was also approved a few days later. It appears to have been by a similar margin. Both initiatives will be implemented in 30 days.