A pro-woman parental rights coalition is launching two 60-second ads this week aimed at defeating Ohio’s pro-abortion, anti-parent amendment, a product of the leftist American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and one that would eliminate parental notification and consent requirements for minors obtaining abortions or gender transition interventions and surgeries.
Both ads by Protect Women Ohio feature Ohio mothers who express fear and concern at the proposal to amend Ohio’s state constitution to guarantee abortion, particularly how it undermines parental rights and allows for gender transition surgeries and abortions for minors without any requirement for parental notification or consent.
“[T]here’s this phrase that the state shall not interfere,” Ohio mom Libby McCartney states in her video. “As a parent, I could be cut out of these decisions that my child is making and someone who is coercing them or is talking them into something could take my teenage daughter, she could get an abortion or get a procedure done and I don’t even know about it. That’s what’s scary.”
Another Ohio mother, Linda Corbitt, asserts in her video that “the language in this amendment takes away our rights as parents to be involved with the decisions that our children make.”
“If they wanted it to be about just abortions, they would have made it just about abortions,” Corbitt said. “They added in these really loose language terms such as reproductive decisions.”
Even Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote in a column published March 31 that Ohio “might be following three other states (Michigan, California and Vermont) in taking radical measures … with a proposed constitutional amendment allegedly meant to protect abortion.”
“I say ‘allegedly’ because the amendment — if passed by voters as a ballot measure in November — would slyly open the door to much more,” Parker continued, adding:
This isn’t spelled out anywhere, but the Ohio amendment’s language could be extrapolated to protect access to all sorts of medical interventions, including sex-change surgery or sterilization, and not just for adults. Age is never mentioned in the amendment, meaning that children could have unfettered access to surgical procedures, including abortion, without parental interference.
🚨NEW: In response to the for-profit abortion industry’s new anti-parent amendment in Ohio, Protect Women Ohio has launched a $5M ad campaign to keep Ohio safe for women, girls, and babies. pic.twitter.com/GGYCFey9Gy
— Protect Women Ohio (@ProtectWomenOH) March 15, 2023
Protect Women Ohio observed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has “unequivocally declared war on parental rights in Ohio” by admitting parental rights to notification and consent for minors’ abortions and gender transition surgeries will be on the chopping block if the amendment is approved.
The Statehouse News Bureau reported on March 15:
The amendment does not mention gender affirming surgery at all.
The language of the amendment is also silent when it comes to how passage of it would affect Ohio’s existing abortion laws when it comes to minors. In February, when asked whether the existing law requiring women under 18 to get parental consent or a court order before getting an abortion would be wiped out if voters approve this law, Jessie Hill, an attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said some existing laws could remain on the books.
“When you pass a constitutional amendment, it doesn’t just automatically erase everything and start over,” Hill said, and then acknowledged, “But it would mean that laws that conflict with it cannot be enforced, should not be enforced.”
“Parents have every reason to fear the ACLU’s extreme agenda,” said Molly Smith, Protect Women Ohio board member. “The state government doesn’t know what is best for our kids, we do.”
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Libby” by Protect Women Ohio.
