Ohio Republican Anti-Abortion Gambit Fails

 

The referendum Ohio Republicans planned to use to head off a constitutional amendment making abortion access legal in the state went down in ignominious flames yesterday, losing 57%-43%:

Ohioans unequivocally rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the threshold for amending their state constitution, a move by Republicans to try to make it harder to legalize abortion at the ballot box.

The outcome was a resounding victory for Democrats in a state where the left has suffered defeat after defeat in recent years — and a blow to Republicans hoping to block efforts to secure abortion rights. A proposal to codify abortion rights in the state constitution has already made the November ballot and needs only a simple majority to pass. Opponents of Issue 1 — the single item on the August special election ballot — were handily winning with most of the votes tallied.

The right framed Issue 1 as a way to bolster the state constitution against tampering by outside special interests, even as both sides spent millions of dollars in out-of-state cash. But the measure ultimately came down to the looming challenge to the GOP-backed law that virtually outlawed abortion in Ohio following the fall of Roe v. Wade last year.

The outcome means as much for onetime swing-state Ohio and its upcoming electoral battles (a presidential election and highly contested Senate race are both on the horizon in 2024) as it does for a post-Roe landscape that’s forced abortion rights activists to find avenues to circumvent Republican state legislatures.

The forced- birth zealots running the Republican/ Christofascist Party have a big problem on their hands, as they've been told repeatedly by voters:

Last year, voters in deep-red Kansas opted overwhelmingly to keep reproductive rights in their state constitution, the first electoral test of the pro-choice movement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion rights. Voters in Michigan, Kentucky and Montana did the same. Arizona appears to be the next electoral battleground where voters could be given the opportunity to weigh in directly on abortion, and Florida could soon join the list.

Polling continues to show a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision. A recent CNN survey found that 64% of adults disapprove of the court’s decision, a figure that CNN says hasn’t diminished since last year, suggesting the momentum for abortion rights that boosted Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections will continue to be a powerful force in 2024.

Any wishful thinking by these crackpots that the voting public wouldn't react to their extremism (Ohio Republicans want a ban on abortions after 6 weeks) is just that -- wishful thinking. 

Language making abortion legal in Ohio ("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") will be on the ballot in November 2023. Democrats need to campaign on defending abortion rights, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it's a winner politically.  

If the turnout and results from yesterday's voting are any indication (they are), Republicans just screwed the pooch (though after November, the pooch'll be able to get an abortion).

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

The Democratic presidential field is smaller by two today;  Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak are out (if you remembered they were in):

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock ended his presidential campaign on Monday, the Democrat announced in a statement to CNN.

The decision comes after the moderate Democrat failed to convince the party's base that the best way to defeat President Donald Trump was by nominating someone who can win in a red state.

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Former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak on Sunday ended his long-shot 2020 presidential bid after failing to gain traction in the race for the Democratic Party's nomination. [snip]

Sestak, who mounted unsuccessful bids for US Senate in 2010 and 2016, entered an already-crowded Democratic primary field in June hoping to leverage his career in the US Navy into a successful campaign, but did not qualify for any of the major Democratic presidential debates. 

For now, unfortunately, Bullock is declining to run in a race he has a chance to win -- for the U.S. Senate seat held by Trumper Steve Daines.

Ezra Klein explores the besieged mindset of the American Taliban, offering this topsy- turvy, through- the- looking- glass view of the world from one right- wing "Christian":

The political commentator Rod Dreher blogs for the American Conservative, where he offers a running catalog of moral affronts and liberal provocations. He doesn’t simply see a society that has become secular and sexualized, but a progressive regime that insists Christians accept and even participate in the degeneracy or fall afoul of nondiscrimination laws and anti-bigotry norms. [snip]

In 2017 Dreher published The Benedict Option, arguing that Christians should retreat into monastic communities where they can live their faith in peace and wait for a decadent culture to consume itself. “We in the modern West are living under barbarism, though we do not recognize it,” he writes. “Our scientists, our judges, our princes, our scholars, and our scribes—they are at work demolishing the faith, the family, gender, even what it means to be human. Our barbarians have exchanged the animal pelts and spears of the past for designer suits and smartphones.”  (our emphasis)

When scientists, judges, scholars, etc., are defined as the "barbarians" and the hypocritical, reactionary, intolerant, violent American Taliban are defined as the defenders of civilization, you have encapsulated right there the reason why we occupy a different, never- to- be- reconciled universe. It goes a long  way in explaining why they see similarly besieged Donald "Beelzebub" Trump as their "Chosen One," their "last, best hope" to save their power and privilege.

What are these American Taliban -- the ones protecting civilization against scientists and other "barbarians", you know -- doing in states where they run the show?

A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.

This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.

The move comes amid a wave of increasingly severe anti-abortion bills introduced across much of the country as conservative Republican politicians seek to ban abortion and force a legal showdown on abortion with the supreme court.

Ohio’s move on ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants on the mother’s fallopian tube rather than her uterus rendering the pregnancy unviable – is one of the most extreme bills to date.  (our emphasis)

State and local elections, people.

The WaPo editorial board calls out the Trump regime in light of the UN's latest report on the global climate change disaster we're facing:

THE U.N. Environment Program released its latest report last week on where we are and where we need to be on addressing climate change. The word the authors chose to describe humanity’s future: “bleak.”

“Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global [greenhouse gas] emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required,” the report found. The hope that global emissions of heat-trapping gases might level out with the increasing use of natural gas in the United States and energy intensity improvements in China turned out to be too optimistic. After temporarily leveling out, emissions continued their rise. That includes in the United States, where Republicans’ various excuses for inaction — such as that the natural gas boom showed that government policy was unnecessary to cut emissions — ring more hollow than ever.

Meanwhile, the impeachment inquiry moves ahead this week, while Trump bumbles off to London for the NATO meeting, where everyone will be trying to avoid him:

As leaders of NATO member states prepare for yet another summit in London next week, a familiar theme is emerging: how to keep President Donald Trump from disrupting proceedings.

Trump has succeeded in alienating virtually every traditional ally of the US as president, and much of this is linked to his obsession with NATO funding and defense spending more generally. But it's also because of his willingness to insert himself into the domestic politics of other countries and say whatever is on his mind. 

Our national disgrace on a world stage again.  With NATO, as with everything else Trumpian, all roads lead to Putin.

We close by recommending you take some time to visit Infidel 753's link round- up for the best collection of links to interesting posts on the internet.  The Klein piece above (via bobfelton.com) is one example of the links you'll be able to go to over there. You should have his blog bookmarked, too!