Ohio Republicans are claiming a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, which was approved by voters in Tuesday’s election, doesn’t actually do that — and they’re promising to take steps to prevent the legal protection of reproductive freedom in the state.
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” Ohio House Republicans wrote in a statement released Thursday. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”
Ohio banned abortion in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, but legal challenges to state’s abortion laws left residents’ reproductive rights in limbo until Tuesday’s ballot measure. The strategy Republicans are now proposing would essentially strip Ohio’s courts of the authority to repeal existing abortion restrictions before the new amendment goes into effect on December 7.
“No amendment can overturn the God-given rights with which we were born,” state Rep. Beth Lear (R-Galena) added in the Republican’s statement. Another representative, Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), claimed the referendum had only passed due to “foreign election interference.”
Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia) said the amendment “doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law,” and that its language is “dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”
Tell me again how Republicans respect democracy? This was its purest form and these Republicans, unhappy with the majority’s decision, would rather destroy the legitimacy of democracy than abide by it.
The “good” news here is that the Supreme Court of Ohio almost assuredly will not go along with this (even though it could result in a constitutional crisis in the state of sorts).
If they were to cede the power of judicial review to the legislature then if the Dems ever did manage to take the legislature here in Ohio they could pass things like (gasp) gun control, gerrymandering regulation, etc.
And that doesn’t even take into account public outcry/protest.
your self-proclaimed ‘god given’ rights only apply to you, not me. fuck off, cunts.
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Isn’t this the same exact shit they did with the marijuana referendum a couple years ago? These people need to be barred from ever holding public office for failing to uphold their duty to serve.
They should absolutely amend the constitution to protect their right to fuck themselves.
