EARLY IN PERSON VOTING IS AVAILABLE AT THE ATHENS COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS UNTIL 5:00 p.m. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5.
What Would Issue 1 Do?
Issue 1 will:
- Protect reproductive rights in Ohio by making it a state constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions”. These decisions include abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, and miscarriage and pregnancy care.
- Prohibit the state of Ohio from interfering with this right unless it can demonstrate that “it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care”.
- Allow the state of Ohio to restrict abortion after fetal viability, defined in the amendment as “the point in a pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician, the fetus has a significant likelihood of survival outside the uterus with reasonable measures”.
- Prohibit the state of Ohio from banning abortion when it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s health or life in the judgment of their physician.
How Does Issue 1 Change Reproductive Rights in Ohio?
- Currently, Ohio law allows abortions up to 21 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy.
- In 2019, Governor DeWine signed Senate Bill 23 into law, designed to ban abortion at around 6 weeks of pregnancy by banning abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Many groups filed a lawsuit to block this from becoming law, which is currently working through the court system. If the Court rules in favor of the state, the 6-week abortion ban will go into place.
How Does Issue 1 Compare to Roe v. Wade?
- Yes on Issue 1 is a return to the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, as abortion would be legal until viability of the fetus, except in cases when the patient’s life or physical health is endangered by the pregnancy as determined by the patient’s physician.
How Does Issue 1 Affect Miscarriage or Ectopic Pregnancy Care?
- Issue 1 also protects the right to reproductive health actions beyond abortion, such as access to contraception, fertility treatment, and miscarriage care, as well as the right to continue a pregnancy.
- Currently, Ohio law does not provide protections for these healthcare decisions.
How Does Issue 1 Affect Parental Rights?
- Ohio law requires minors under the age of 18 to get consent from at least one parent to have an abortion. Minors who believe they are unable to tell a parent must get a court order from a judge through a process called judicial bypass.
- Issue 1 would not change this.