Yesterday, Ohio voters voted on a constitutional amendment that would guarantee access to abortion.
Abortions have continued to be a pressing issue across the nation ever since the Republican-majority Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe V. Wade.
Now that Republicans have suffered crushing defeats in both Virginia and Kentucky, it is seeming more and more likely that abortion is winning elections for Democrats.
The Associated Press News shares more on the issue:
The outcome of the intense, off-year election could be a bellwether for 2024, when Democrats hope the issue will energize their voters and help President Joe Biden keep the White House. Voters in Arizona, Missouri and elsewhere are expected to vote on similar protections next year.
Heather Williams, interim president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats to state legislatures, said the vote in favor of abortion rights was a “huge victor
“Ohio’s resounding support for this constitutional amendment reaffirms Democratic priorities and sends a strong message to the state GOP that reproductive rights are non-negotiable,” she said in a statement.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris issued statements celebrating the amendment’s win, emphasizing that attempts to ban or severely restrict abortion represent a minority view across the country. Harris hinted at how the issue would likely be central to Democrats’ campaigning next year for Congress and the presidency, saying “extremists are pushing for a national abortion ban that would criminalize reproductive health care in every single state in our nation.”
Republicans took to X to express their disgust at the new Ohio amendment:
We’re going to hell in a handbasket#Ohio has voted to enshrine the #murder of the #unborn as a legal right#abortion pic.twitter.com/9TSS1SvEsi
— Ronald Kelly (@RonK3l) November 8, 2023
Sad. Death cult celebrating abortion on demand advancing in Ohio. Under this new and extreme constitutional provision, it makes it virtually impossible to protect unborn babies at ANY TIME in pregnancy.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 8, 2023
The Washington Post shares more on the story:
The results sent a stark signal about enduring demands across the political spectrum to protect access to abortion more than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, heralding potentially far-reaching implications for the 2024 election. They offered more evidence that the end of Roe and the patchwork of abortion bans that followed have given Democrats a powerful argument to turn out their base and sway moderates and some Republicans. And they reaffirmed that GOP candidates who support restrictions are still struggling to find an effective message, even as some have tried to soften their pitch.
“If I were an antiabortion politician, I’d be scared,” said Tresa Undem, a public opinion researcher who studies abortion and supports abortion rights.
The most direct test of abortion politics came in Ohio, where abortion rights supporters entered Tuesday optimistic that a ballot measure called Issue 1 would pass. Ohioans had already weighed in on a referendum viewed as a proxy for the abortion fight, voting in August against a proposal that would have boosted abortion opponents’ chances on Issue 1 by making it harder to amend the state constitution.
The topic of abortion should not be dismissed when the 2024 elections come around.
It sends a worrying sign that Biden might be able to swing states purely using abortion as a motivating factor.
President Trump has always been very vague on his stance on abortion, but he does seem to want to find some middle ground between unrestricted abortions and full-blown outlawing of the procedure.
