Columbus, Ohio — The battle over abortion rights across the state since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a constitutional right to abortion has exposed another fault line: commitment to democracy.
As voters in state after state express support for abortion rights, opponents act with escalating resistance to the democratic processes and institutions they believe align with their cause.
Certain Republican elected officials and anti-abortion activists across the country have responded to the losses at the ballot box by questioning election results, refusing to bring state laws into line with voter-backed changes, and stripping state courts of their power to consider abortion. related laws and challenging the citizen-led ballot initiative itself.
“We.Are.Not.Done.”, Ohio State Rep. Jennifer Gross declared on the social media platform She and 25 other Republican lawmakers vowed to block the amendment that would overturn existing abortion restrictions in Ohio.
A large majority of Ohio voters approved the amendment, about 57% to 43%. In response, the group of lawmakers said in a joint statement: “We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being abolished based on the perception of intent.”
Gross joined three fellow Republicans in going even further, proposing legislation to prevent Ohio courts from interpreting cases related to the abortion rights amendment, known as Issue 1. Similar efforts are underway in six other states emerged since state courts became the new abortion battleground following the June 24, 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
Douglas Keith, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Judiciary Program, said the abortion policy fueled successful efforts to limit the power of state courts in Montana and Utah and failed legislation in Alaska and Kansas. Such bills are attempts to dismantle the government’s system of checks and balances, he said.
“An attempt to take away the courts’ ability to interpret Issue 1 seems to me to be a violation not only of the courts, but of the voters themselves,” Keith said regarding Ohio’s amendment.
That conflict was on display during a town hall hosted by Gross after her efforts to thwart the abortion rights amendment were announced. One voter who said she supported No. 1, Emily Jackson, was in disbelief.
‘You ignore the voice. The voice is there,” Jackson said. “We have talked.”
Gross told Jackson she was not ignoring voters, but rather reflecting opponents’ concerns that Ohio voters were being misled. The campaign drew a lot of money from out of state for both parties.
Gross did not return calls or send emails requesting additional comment.
Supporters argue that strict abortion laws are also undemocratic in the most fundamental sense, because a majority of Americans oppose them. According to AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 94,000 voters, 63% of those who voted in the 2022 midterm elections said abortion should be legal in most or all cases. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, conducted a year after the Supreme Court ruling, found that overall, about two-thirds of Americans thought abortion should generally be legal.
In all seven states where abortion has come up since the fall of Roe v. Wade, voters have either supported protections for abortion rights or rejected an effort to erode those rights.
That has led some Republicans who support abortion restrictions to focus on the ballot initiative, a form of direct democracy available to voters in only about half of states.
“Thank God most states in this country don’t let you put everything on the ballot because pure democracies are not the way to run a country,” said Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and former presidential candidate . candidate. He spoke about Ohio’s election results during an appearance on the conservative site NewsMax.
Another elected Republican, North Dakota State Representative Brandon Prichard, weighed in on X, formerly Twitter, to encourage Republicans to defy the outcome of the Ohio election.
“It would be an act of courage to ignore the outcome of the election and not allow the murder of babies in Ohio,” he wrote.
Some political observers see a greater danger in such sentiments.
Sophia Jordán Wallace, a political science professor at the University of Washington, said that “the frequency and explicitness of these undemocratic efforts are increasing” and that they threaten to do long-term damage to American institutions and public trust in them.
“And that damage is incredibly difficult to undo,” she said.
For many opponents of abortion, the issue is “a sacred matter, something that cannot be debated,” a matter that may outweigh the importance of upholding democratic practices, said Myrna Perez, associate professor of Gender and American Religion at the Ohio University.
“Things are not static, so you try to find a way to make the system achieve the results you want,” she said.
Andrew Whitehead, an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said Christian nationalists, who have deep ties to the anti-abortion movement, have a history of treating access to basic democratic processes like voting not as a right but as a consider privilege. that should only be offered to those who align with their beliefs.
“When it comes to enforcing their vision for America, which they believe is ordained by God, they will put democracy aside,” Whitehead said.
Lawmakers and anti-abortion advocates have already retreated in a handful of states where voters generally sided with abortion rights.
In Montana, voters last fall rejected a legislative referendum that would have criminalized a doctor or nurse’s failure to provide life-saving care to a baby born alive after an attempted abortion; such cases usually involve serious medical problems. Republicans responded by signing a version of the rejected measure into law.
Republicans in Kentucky chose to leave intact a state ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, even as voters there rejected a measure that would have denied constitutional protections to the procedure.
In Ohio, some notable Republicans are rejecting anti-democratic suggestions and standing up for voters.
“In this country we accept the outcome of the election,” said GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, a leading opponent of Issue 1. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost tweeted that he had “searched” the Ohio Constitution but found “no exception found in cases where the outcome of an election conflicts with the preferences of those in power.”
“All political power is inherent in the people,” he quoted the document as saying.
Republican legislative leaders initially promised that the fight to restrict abortion rights was not over after voters spoke. But as their party grapples with the deep divisions of the anti-abortion movement, House Speaker Jason Stephens and Senate President Matt Huffman appear to be softening their tone.
Stephens indicated he will not advance Gross’ bill. Huffman, a devout Catholic, floated suggestions that he might seek an immediate repeal of Issue 1.
They were among Ohio Republicans who defied their own law and called a special election in August aimed at raising the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60%. The measure was widely seen as an attempt to undermine the fall amendment on abortion and was decisively rejected.
The tensions are already clearly visible in the abortion initiatives planned for state elections in 2024.
In Missouri, disputes over ballot language are complicating efforts by abortion rights advocates to advance a statewide ballot measure. A jury ruled last month that summaries written by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, an abortion opponent who is running for governor next year, were politically partisan and misleading.
In Michigan, three Republican lawmakers joined an anti-abortion group in filing a lawsuit to overturn a state constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights that voters passed with broad support last year. Florida’s Republican attorney general is trying to keep a proposed abortion rights change off the 2024 ballot.
“We saw voters in Ohio making the connection between abortion and democracy in that first special election,” said Kara Gross, legislative director at the ACLU of Florida. “And we are confident that voters will be able to make the same connection elsewhere in 2024.”
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