Left-Wing Group Backing Ohio Abortion Ballot Initiative Promotes Ending Parental Involvement Laws

Pro-abortion activists protest in front of the Supreme Court on June 26, 2022, in Washingt
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Katherine Hamilton

One of the far-left groups pushing for an abortion ballot initiative in Ohio has repeatedly called for the end of parental involvement laws.

The coalition leading the pro-abortion effort, called Ohioans of Reproductive Freedom, appears to be purposefully obscuring whether the proposed ballot language would undermine parental consent laws in Ohio. However, one of the eight groups comprising the coalition, Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), has a history of calling for the abolition of state laws that require parental consent or parental notification before a minor can obtain an abortion, even calling the laws “unethical.”

In 2019, URGE tweeted, “We should continue to mobilize on the state and local levels. Young [people] face unique barriers when trying to access abortion. We need policies that get rid of parental involvement laws so that young people can access abortion without unnecessary restriction. #MaternalJustice.”

“It’s time to END parental involvement laws. We’re ALL worthy of self-determination,” the group tweeted in 2022.

On International Cat Day in 2021, the group asserted that “young [people] cannot be free until we’re given the freedom to make decisions about our own bodies, lives, & futures.”

“Parental involvement laws block this & violate our humanity. End parental involvement laws MEOW!” the group continued.

In 2020, the group slammed a law that was passed in Florida requiring minors to have parental consent before going through with an abortion.

“This bill both policies the body and choices of young people, and endangers their mental, physical, and emotional health. END PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT LAWS. #MyVoiceMyChoice,” the group tweeted.

The group has also called called legislation that would make it a felony for doctors to perform sex-mutilating surgeries on minors “dangerous” and “harmful.”

URGE was founded as ChoiceUSA in 1992 by Gloria Steinem, Kristina Kiehl, and Julie Burton, according to the group’s “Our History” page. In 1999, the group became an “exclusively youth-focused organization” with a specific focus on “young people of color and young LGBTQ people” and eventually changed its name to URGE.

Records show URGE is funded in part from individual donations facilitated by Democrats’ ActBlue donor platform. The organization has additionally received money from large left-wing groups such as Planned Parenthood, Packard Foundation, and the New Venture Fund.

The ACLU of Ohio, another coalition member, is responsible for crafting broad the language of the proposed abortion amendment, along with other groups like Planned Parenthood, Fox News reported. The ACLU notably has its own history of fighting against parental rights, and the national ACLU website has a whole page on why the organization does not support parental consent and notification laws.

The language of the abortion ballot initiative is extremely broad and makes no differentiation between minors and adults, instead opting to use the term “individual.”

The proposed ballot measure states that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion.”

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House Committee on the Judiciary

Under the amendment, the state would also not be allowed to “directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the state demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individuals health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.”

Left-wing fact-checkers have been quick to assert that the amendment would not impact parental rights. But when local media have questioned the ACLU of Ohio as to whether the language of the measure would undo parental consent and notification laws, the organization vaguely indicated that those laws would not stand if the amendment passes.

“When you pass a constitutional amendment, it doesn’t just automatically erase everything and start over. But it would mean that laws that conflict with it cannot be enforced, should not be enforced,” said Jessie Hill, an attorney for the ACLU of Ohio.

Critics of the ballot measure, constitutional scholars Carrie Campbell Severino, President of JCN, and Frank J. Scaturro, a former special counsel to the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, have urgently warned that the amendment would decimate parental rights.

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ECPS Florida / YouTube

In an analysis of the proposed amendment, Severino and Scaturro wrote that the amendment is being largely and incorrectly framed as a means of adding a right to abortion in the state constitution. Instead, they argue that the proposal is “so broadly worded that it would prevent the legislature not only from requiring the consent of parents before their child pursues a particular procedure, but also from requiring mere notification of parents — well short of the power to veto their child’s decision — before the procedure takes place.” They further contend the text goes beyond abortion because of the use of the broad term “reproductive decisions.” 

“By explicitly defining such decisions as “not limited to” the enumerated categories, the proposal establishes its scope as sweeping,” they wrote.

“A natural reading would extend to any medical procedure that involves the human reproductive system, including sex-change surgery,” they continued. “The language also applies to individuals without any age qualification, so the proposal makes no distinction between adults and minors. Additional language would deny parents the right to any intervention on behalf of their children that would discourage them from obtaining the procedure in question.”

A group which describes itself as a pro-woman, pro-parents statewide coalition, Protect Women Ohio (PWO), has launched a multimillion-dollar statewide television and digital ad campaign against the proposed amendment in response to the left-wing campaign, warning that the measure would “outlaw basic health and safety protections for women, eliminate parental notification and consent laws that protect minor girls, and allow painful abortions up until birth in our state.”

PWO posted a video compilation of URGE’s anti-parent posts to Twitter on Tuesday, noting that URGE “has been working to abolish parental consent and notification laws for years.” 

Breitbart News reached out to URGE and the coalition for comment but did not hear back by time of publication.

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