The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
The future of reproductive rights will still be a battle ahead amid changes to the presidential administration, the congressional makeup of the country and even the Ohio Statehouse having their impacts, according to abortion rights and anti-abortion advocates.
After the general election in Ohio, anti-abortion groups and supporters took a triumphant tone with the second election of President-elect Donald Trump, and Republican Bernie Moreno over Democratic Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Columbus-based Heartbeat International said voters had given Trump and Congress a “pro-life mandate to protect life.”
“With pro-life leadership across the White House and Senate, this election marks a significant moment for advancing policies that uphold the value of life,” said Jor-El Godsey, Heartbeat International president.
Still, the group acknowledged “national division” on the topic of abortion. The group called the reproductive rights constitutional amendment successes in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York “part of a systematic dismantling of the value of life in American culture.”
Voters in only three states with reproductive rights ballot measures on the ballot defeated those measures: South Dakota, Nebraska and Florida. Approval for Florida’s measure received the majority of votes, but fell short of the 60% approval needed to amend the state constitution.
Six other states, including Ohio, approved similar ballot initiatives in previous elections. Ohio’s ballot measure passed with 57% of the vote last November.
The national group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America celebrated the success of Ohio Senator-elect Bernie Moreno, whom its SBA Pro-Life American Candidate Fund had endorsed all the way back in June.
The group also boasted what they said was the “largest ever voter contact program,” which reached more than 10 million “persuadable and low-turnout voters” to support Senate candidates like Moreno across states they identified as “battleground” states: Ohio, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The group said they made more than 1.2 million visits to “targeted voters” in Ohio, sent out nearly 1.5 million pieces of mail and sent more than 2 million texts to voters in the state.
But reproductive and abortion rights groups say while the election results, particularly in top-ticket races, represented setbacks, the voters who showed up showed hope for the movement.
“Despite the result of the presidential election, a majority of voters turned out in support of gender issues.” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, in a statement. “Millions of people, across all demographics, voted for reproductive freedom, affordable child care and an equitable economy – issues that NWLC will continue to fight for.”
Advocates are worried about the implications of Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook by the Heritage Foundation that was connected to President-elect Donald Trump throughout the election. The author of Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC has since been chosen by Trump to head that very federal agency, pending U.S. Senate approval.
The NWLC did a report prior to the election about Project 2025, and how it would impact certain topics, including reproductive rights.
“A key theme throughout Project 2025 is hostility to abortion and reproductive rights,” the report stated. “This includes the elimination of references to ‘abortion,’ ‘reproductive health’ and ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ from all federal rules, regulations, contracts and grants in order to institute what Project 2025 calls a ‘Life Agenda.’”
That would also include getting rid of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access and “installing a ‘pro-life’ task force to ensure the department is promoting an anti-abortion agenda,” the report continued.
In the policy agenda chapter on the HHS – written by Roger Severino, Heritage Foundation vice president of domestic policy and former director of the Office of Civil Rights during the previous Trump administration – goal number one is “protecting life, conscience and bodily integrity.”
Severino writes that the HHS secretary “should pursue a robust agenda to protect the fundamental right to life, protect conscience rights and uphold bodily integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideology.”
“The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care,” Severino wrote.
In Ohio, reproductive rights is protected by the constitutional amendment passed last year, which enshrined abortion rights until physician-determined viability and other rights into the state constitution, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be legal wrangling.
Planned Parenthood of Ohio expressed disappointment in overall election results, but were resolute in their plans to continue their goals for the state and elsewhere.
“We will continue to fight for safe, inclusive communities where all people have access to the medical care they need, where abortion is legal and protected, where access to contraception is not threatened and where the decision of when or whether to start a family remains a basic right,” said Lauren Blauvelt, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, said in a statement.
Ohio’s leading anti-abortion lobby, however, saw the Republican wins as a way forward for their policy objectives, and an indication from a voting majority of “their support for pro-life candidates ranging from President and U.S. Senate to our Supreme Court and state legislature,” according to a statement from Ohio Right to Life.
“These election successes have given Ohio Right to Life a mandate to pursue strong pro-life state policies and Ohio Right to Life looks forward to working with pro-life men and women in the General Assembly, governor’s office and beyond to defend the most sacred right – the right to life,” the statement read.
Democrats gained two seats each in the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate, but the veto-proof Republican supermajority held strong going into the 136th General Assembly next year.
While legislation has been introduced that may undermine the rights given in the constitutional amendment, or at least discourage funding for them, one legislative leader said rolling back the amendment protections isn’t a policy priority he sees happening.
State Sen. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, who was just named successor to Sen. Matt Huffman as Senate President in next year’s General Assembly, told the Capital Journal, “the inaction on the issue kind of speaks for itself.”
“Since Issue 1 passed last November, there really hasn’t been a lot of discussion about it,” McColley said. “I think, by and large, people realize Ohioans spoke, and that’s the way it is right now.”
