It shows progress for women's rights despite the right wing extremist efforts to roll them back. Just ten years ago, a measure like this may have passed. In fact Republicans used anti-abortion folks to win elections, and now it's backfiring on them instead. Let's hope the same holds true for their anti-gay/trans pretentious morality garbage and their invasion of schools to try to teach ignorance and hate.
Since critical thinking doesn’t work well for them, they are now doing their damndest to ban books that nurture fairness, inclusiveness and having an open and active mind.
Jean you are so correct!! it's not only anti-abortion when they tried to kill Roe v Wade, it's more of a death sentence for Women who have something go wrong with their pregnancy and we all know this. Urrg
Without Dobbs there would not have been the need for such a measure, women's civil rights were protected under Roe v Wade. But the thinking around abortion has changed to the majority becoming pro-choice, whereas in the past the majority was with the anti-abortion crowd. They cause more death but call themselves pro life. More people are getting wise to them, and that change has been more gradual than sudden.
I wish the anti abortion people would stop call ing themselves pro life. Considering their support for the NRA and arms manufacturers, the death penalty, forced birth, and lack of support for education, child and family welfare, and letting pregnant people who need care come to the brink of death, they are about as pro life as a mass murderer.
The abortion debate was always problematic in that it cast this as a black-and-white issue, while in reality the majority is neither opposed to all abortion nor fully pro-abortion, but somewhere in the middle. The only thing that's changed is that the other end of the spectrum (and then the extremists of even that) suddenly got the upper hand.
It is pretty black and white. Either a woman has the right to choose abortion or she doesn't and the state gets to interfere with that choice and even charge her with murder. The setting a month of pregnancy when the state gets to interfere is not a shade of gray, it's still denying a woman's choice based upon religious theory and not civil law.
Your statement illustrates the very point I'm trying to make. You are reducing it to "either a woman has the right to choose abortion regardless of the month of pregnancy or she gets charged with murder". But there are a gazillion options between those two extremes, and the vast majority of Americans would feel more comfortable with those (I read somewhere that something like 60% of the population wants neither extreme).
A woman having the ability to choose an abortion or not is the current issue. The birth control options are part of that same issue, the right to choose what is right for her in her situation as opposed to having the government step in and criminalize her choice.
I agree, no one has the right to kill their children, but the unborn are not human beings or offspring as you term it, at the point abortion generally occurs. They are a potential for life that requires a woman to make a decision to risk her life to bring them to fruition, to give her body to nurture that potential. A potential is not a fully formed human being and should not be assigned civil rights over that of the woman who has the right to decide to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that the formation continues. Nobody can or should force anybody else to take that risk against their will, and no matter how safe you perceive pregnancy, there is a risk, and in fact it's been rising in recent years in the United States.. Jesus believed and taught that life begins at the first breath, which would be around week 34, not week 12, when the lungs are formed, not when a heart cell beats. Heart cells beat in a Petri dish or in a corpse. Oxygen enables a brain to function, so the first breath makes more sense to me. When oxygen does not get to the brain, for prolonged periods of time, that is brain death. Nobody is murdering anybody when a woman chooses to have an abortion. The people who try to inflict shame and guilt upon her hurt women. The people who rile people up into hysteria so they kill doctors and patients at clinics they attack or bomb are the ones who are killing people and hurting people, often people who are far more intelligent and caring who help many others through their lifetimes than these extremists who feel they are so holy and right.
Kah Shah: NO ONE who is pro-choice is advocating infanticide. Stop trying to make this about something that has NEVER been advocated by the pro-choice movement. You are trying to invoke religious basis which does not exist in any major religion (unless you call your rEpublicrite leanings a religion....which it probably is, in your case.)
Is it just me or are the GOP legislators and candidates learning NOTHING from their defeats? People told them VERY clearly: we want abortion rights, we want to end gerrymandering, we want the sensible gun law reform, we want to tax the wealthy. Republicans keep losing over and over because of their inflexible stance on those issues, particularly abortion rights - yet they keep doing the same thing. Do they not understand that even a handful of sensible, moderate Republican candidates could seriously revive the party? I get that all they care about is power - but don't they see that power is precisely what their losing thanks to their own pigheadedness?
Jay Kuo: I say: "I hope they continue along these lines. They are tightening their noose and going slowly allows us to prepare the popcorn and chill the champagne."
Had their nonsense not been harming other people, I'd say - yup. Let them hang themselves by their own rope. But they are not operating in a bubble. How many women from Texas and Florida have to suffer spontaneous miscarriages while on a plane to a state that allows abortions? How many immigrants have to die horribly after a run-in with Greg Abbot's sadistic razor wire bundles floating in the Rio Grande? How many trans kids have to commit suicide after being denied the care that they need? The longer these people are allowed ANYWHERE near our laws, the more of their constituents are going to suffer in a very real way.
And abortion rights isn’t the real core of the issue. It’s the right to control our own destiny at the most basic first step. It is the right to a say about our autonomy to have a say in our very right to life, to health choices. We’re only wanting to quash their desire to control by fear and muscle.
All people have to do is look at Norway. They have the most liberal abortion laws, and they have the lowest abortion rates. That these infidels don't see this correlation is astonishing to me. Give people their freedom, and the vast majority will relish it.
The Republicans learned one thing: their strategy works. They've catered to only their own voters instead of all the people since at least Newt Gingrich. And they've lost the political center. In fact, they ran out of voters in the 2010s, which is when the Tea Party swooped in and provided fresh voters in return for yet more extremism.
Unfortunately, the Democrats aren't innocent on this; they followed right along. They, too, sacrificed representing everybody in favor of gobbling up those abandoned former Republicans. People like Joe Manchin or even Hillary Clinton would have been considered to the right of Ronald Reagan. Today, some people actually call those people "centrists" or "moderates".
As long as Repubs have access to dark-money funding in the millions, they can keep on trying to foil the will of the majority, thanks to Citizens United. Even as they lose election after election on anti-abortion issues, money is always available for yet another measure in yet another state. So, in November, the same crowd backing Issue 1 with the same scurrilous propaganda will double down in what is hopefully a losing effort to defeat the pro-choice Ohio constitutional amendment proposal, as funding seems inexhaustible despite the losses piling up.
They are so deep in cognitive biases that they cannot perceive reality. Couple that with a patriarchal mindset, seeking to break the church/state barrier, the lure of power to narcissistic ‘thuglicans, and the threat of eternal damnation, they will need a round of big losses to wake up (as awake as they could be).
38% turnout--says a lot that this number is praised. Imagine if we had 98% turnout in every election (August or November or any other month they were held)... We'd have a country living up to its promise and no longer beholden to illiberal minority shenanigans. *sigh*
Truth! If we had 98% turnout, heck I’d settle for 80%, it would be statistically impossible to have more than a few Republicans holding office in any state in this country. What a breath of fresh air THAT would be. I advocate a two party system but the present GOP needs to be put down hard!
"The big victory on Issue 1 showed the world that Ohio is still very much in play and that its citizens want to take back control of their democracy."
From your lips to God's ears, Jay. I was encouraged by the turnout and thought it was hopeful for Sherrod's sake as well. He's a good man, not just a Democratic Senator. Now you've got me thinking about signing up to knock on doors for him next year!
For the life of me, I cannot understand how a woman's right to do with her body whatever she wishes has anything at all to do with the Consititution. The men of today making these decisions don't really care or understand about a woman's body. It's all about power and votes. And don't get me started on the evangelicals. No where in the Bible does it talk about abortion. And to those who plan to vote for trump - be assured that he's doing EXACTLY the same thing Ohio is trying to do....only he's calling it something different. It's all about HIM not you. VOTE BLUE!
It has to do with the Constitution in the regard that there is no guarantee of equal rights for women therein. The Equal Rights Amendment was only written in 1923 (keep in mind the Constitution was ratified in 1789), but 100 years after the Amendment was introduced, we still don't have it. It has now been ratified by the requisite number of states, but not yet written into the Constitution. We need to make a lot of noise about that, because without that guarantee, as you can see, rights are easily taken away
We can thank the many pro-Democracy groups, including Indivisibles, across the country who worked tirelessly to get voters out against Issue 1. One question Jay Kuo that I’d appreciate if you could address: Gov. Death Sentence has for a second time removed a democratically elected state attorney in Florida. How can he get away with that?
That will be fought in court. He already was told he was wrong to remove one official, but then a judge said he lacked the power to order the official’s reinstatement.
How many times does it need to be said? Women, (independents, Republicans and Democrats) of all persuasions do not want a majority of male politicians telling them what is right or moral to do with their bodies!! I never hear the same politicians chastising the men who participated in the pregnancy. We are sick of it!!
I was a poll worker yesterday in a very small (and slow) local election in Michigan so we had a lot of time for talking. My chair person is a Republican, one of the few lately I don't cringe at when talking politics. He stated yesterday that the right is becoming less and less representative of "true Republican values" (which we can all agree) and he said that the gubernatorial election last year was proof of how proposals can swing an election for one candidate vs the other. Now I'm not sure the GOP candidate for governor actually could have taken Whitmer regardless of the abortion issue but the abortion issue clearly did nothing to help her. But he is smart enough to see it as we are now seeing across the country. He is party loyal but very frustrated with the current state of his party. It is kind of satisfying hearing the frustration of someone that has never questioned "his party". This kind of thing gives me hope for what's to come next election- people like him would never vote Democrat but he would consider voting 3rd party if someone he could get behind would break out of the GOP extremist mold. I think the chaos is coming for the GOP and I'm all for it.
My lifelong Republican husband (retired military) voted for Biden in 2020, the first time he’d ever voted for a Democratic candidate (he voted for an independent in 2016). He said he’ll vote for Biden again in 2024 as he’s never going to vote for TFG. I’m glad that some Republicans can see that the former GOP is no longer with us.
Ohio has passed two anti-gerimandering constitutional amendments, by wide margins, that the legislature has totally ignored. The GOP controlled supreme court won't do anything about it.
The GOP controlled court did try to order the maps redrawn. But the GOP acted in contempt of that order and ran out the clock. Our system isn’t set up well to handle politicians who choose to operate outside of the norms.
Not only is the abortion rights issue salient to the population, but the state was going to cause people to lose a lot of rights that they currently have in terms of getting initiatives on their ballots. I think that once rights are codified into law people don't like losing them whatever they are, which is why abortion is resonating so much with so many people. It was and is the loss of a right. Since the Republican party has turned into the party of the loss of rights, that is not a popular platform. Americans like the idea of freedom and losing rights is not furthering these values we all hold.
It shows progress for women's rights despite the right wing extremist efforts to roll them back. Just ten years ago, a measure like this may have passed. In fact Republicans used anti-abortion folks to win elections, and now it's backfiring on them instead. Let's hope the same holds true for their anti-gay/trans pretentious morality garbage and their invasion of schools to try to teach ignorance and hate.
Since critical thinking doesn’t work well for them, they are now doing their damndest to ban books that nurture fairness, inclusiveness and having an open and active mind.
Jean you are so correct!! it's not only anti-abortion when they tried to kill Roe v Wade, it's more of a death sentence for Women who have something go wrong with their pregnancy and we all know this. Urrg
Not just ten years ago. One year ago, such a measure might have passed. It's not so much progress in general, but specifically Dobbs.
Without Dobbs there would not have been the need for such a measure, women's civil rights were protected under Roe v Wade. But the thinking around abortion has changed to the majority becoming pro-choice, whereas in the past the majority was with the anti-abortion crowd. They cause more death but call themselves pro life. More people are getting wise to them, and that change has been more gradual than sudden.
I wish the anti abortion people would stop call ing themselves pro life. Considering their support for the NRA and arms manufacturers, the death penalty, forced birth, and lack of support for education, child and family welfare, and letting pregnant people who need care come to the brink of death, they are about as pro life as a mass murderer.
The abortion debate was always problematic in that it cast this as a black-and-white issue, while in reality the majority is neither opposed to all abortion nor fully pro-abortion, but somewhere in the middle. The only thing that's changed is that the other end of the spectrum (and then the extremists of even that) suddenly got the upper hand.
It is pretty black and white. Either a woman has the right to choose abortion or she doesn't and the state gets to interfere with that choice and even charge her with murder. The setting a month of pregnancy when the state gets to interfere is not a shade of gray, it's still denying a woman's choice based upon religious theory and not civil law.
Your statement illustrates the very point I'm trying to make. You are reducing it to "either a woman has the right to choose abortion regardless of the month of pregnancy or she gets charged with murder". But there are a gazillion options between those two extremes, and the vast majority of Americans would feel more comfortable with those (I read somewhere that something like 60% of the population wants neither extreme).
A woman having the ability to choose an abortion or not is the current issue. The birth control options are part of that same issue, the right to choose what is right for her in her situation as opposed to having the government step in and criminalize her choice.
I am a woman and I do not have the right to kill my offspring. Those are not women's rights. Some women's crimes, perhaps.
I agree, no one has the right to kill their children, but the unborn are not human beings or offspring as you term it, at the point abortion generally occurs. They are a potential for life that requires a woman to make a decision to risk her life to bring them to fruition, to give her body to nurture that potential. A potential is not a fully formed human being and should not be assigned civil rights over that of the woman who has the right to decide to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure that the formation continues. Nobody can or should force anybody else to take that risk against their will, and no matter how safe you perceive pregnancy, there is a risk, and in fact it's been rising in recent years in the United States.. Jesus believed and taught that life begins at the first breath, which would be around week 34, not week 12, when the lungs are formed, not when a heart cell beats. Heart cells beat in a Petri dish or in a corpse. Oxygen enables a brain to function, so the first breath makes more sense to me. When oxygen does not get to the brain, for prolonged periods of time, that is brain death. Nobody is murdering anybody when a woman chooses to have an abortion. The people who try to inflict shame and guilt upon her hurt women. The people who rile people up into hysteria so they kill doctors and patients at clinics they attack or bomb are the ones who are killing people and hurting people, often people who are far more intelligent and caring who help many others through their lifetimes than these extremists who feel they are so holy and right.
Kah Shah: NO ONE who is pro-choice is advocating infanticide. Stop trying to make this about something that has NEVER been advocated by the pro-choice movement. You are trying to invoke religious basis which does not exist in any major religion (unless you call your rEpublicrite leanings a religion....which it probably is, in your case.)
Is it just me or are the GOP legislators and candidates learning NOTHING from their defeats? People told them VERY clearly: we want abortion rights, we want to end gerrymandering, we want the sensible gun law reform, we want to tax the wealthy. Republicans keep losing over and over because of their inflexible stance on those issues, particularly abortion rights - yet they keep doing the same thing. Do they not understand that even a handful of sensible, moderate Republican candidates could seriously revive the party? I get that all they care about is power - but don't they see that power is precisely what their losing thanks to their own pigheadedness?
It’s like they keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. The definition of ….
Jay Kuo: I say: "I hope they continue along these lines. They are tightening their noose and going slowly allows us to prepare the popcorn and chill the champagne."
Had their nonsense not been harming other people, I'd say - yup. Let them hang themselves by their own rope. But they are not operating in a bubble. How many women from Texas and Florida have to suffer spontaneous miscarriages while on a plane to a state that allows abortions? How many immigrants have to die horribly after a run-in with Greg Abbot's sadistic razor wire bundles floating in the Rio Grande? How many trans kids have to commit suicide after being denied the care that they need? The longer these people are allowed ANYWHERE near our laws, the more of their constituents are going to suffer in a very real way.
Classic. CLASSIC definition.
Insanity 🤪
And abortion rights isn’t the real core of the issue. It’s the right to control our own destiny at the most basic first step. It is the right to a say about our autonomy to have a say in our very right to life, to health choices. We’re only wanting to quash their desire to control by fear and muscle.
You nailed it, Pat!!!
All people have to do is look at Norway. They have the most liberal abortion laws, and they have the lowest abortion rates. That these infidels don't see this correlation is astonishing to me. Give people their freedom, and the vast majority will relish it.
They'll never learn, no. Because they (smartly) legislate/rule and, perhaps most importantly, they communicate as if they have a mandate and majority.
The Republicans learned one thing: their strategy works. They've catered to only their own voters instead of all the people since at least Newt Gingrich. And they've lost the political center. In fact, they ran out of voters in the 2010s, which is when the Tea Party swooped in and provided fresh voters in return for yet more extremism.
Unfortunately, the Democrats aren't innocent on this; they followed right along. They, too, sacrificed representing everybody in favor of gobbling up those abandoned former Republicans. People like Joe Manchin or even Hillary Clinton would have been considered to the right of Ronald Reagan. Today, some people actually call those people "centrists" or "moderates".
The Republican Party no longer believes in self-governance, so no, they're not going to learn.
As long as Repubs have access to dark-money funding in the millions, they can keep on trying to foil the will of the majority, thanks to Citizens United. Even as they lose election after election on anti-abortion issues, money is always available for yet another measure in yet another state. So, in November, the same crowd backing Issue 1 with the same scurrilous propaganda will double down in what is hopefully a losing effort to defeat the pro-choice Ohio constitutional amendment proposal, as funding seems inexhaustible despite the losses piling up.
They are so deep in cognitive biases that they cannot perceive reality. Couple that with a patriarchal mindset, seeking to break the church/state barrier, the lure of power to narcissistic ‘thuglicans, and the threat of eternal damnation, they will need a round of big losses to wake up (as awake as they could be).
38% turnout--says a lot that this number is praised. Imagine if we had 98% turnout in every election (August or November or any other month they were held)... We'd have a country living up to its promise and no longer beholden to illiberal minority shenanigans. *sigh*
Truth! If we had 98% turnout, heck I’d settle for 80%, it would be statistically impossible to have more than a few Republicans holding office in any state in this country. What a breath of fresh air THAT would be. I advocate a two party system but the present GOP needs to be put down hard!
Amen to that, Jeni!!
"The big victory on Issue 1 showed the world that Ohio is still very much in play and that its citizens want to take back control of their democracy."
From your lips to God's ears, Jay. I was encouraged by the turnout and thought it was hopeful for Sherrod's sake as well. He's a good man, not just a Democratic Senator. Now you've got me thinking about signing up to knock on doors for him next year!
Thank you Jay and Thank you Ohio!!!
Well said - “ Ohio is not so much a “red” state as it is a vote-suppressed state.”
For the life of me, I cannot understand how a woman's right to do with her body whatever she wishes has anything at all to do with the Consititution. The men of today making these decisions don't really care or understand about a woman's body. It's all about power and votes. And don't get me started on the evangelicals. No where in the Bible does it talk about abortion. And to those who plan to vote for trump - be assured that he's doing EXACTLY the same thing Ohio is trying to do....only he's calling it something different. It's all about HIM not you. VOTE BLUE!
It has to do with the Constitution in the regard that there is no guarantee of equal rights for women therein. The Equal Rights Amendment was only written in 1923 (keep in mind the Constitution was ratified in 1789), but 100 years after the Amendment was introduced, we still don't have it. It has now been ratified by the requisite number of states, but not yet written into the Constitution. We need to make a lot of noise about that, because without that guarantee, as you can see, rights are easily taken away
Promising signs, but complacency is the enemy. Every Dem has to vote at EVERY opportunity.
Ohio turnout was 38%. That's 62% of eligible voters did NOT vote. What's the matter with you people? Don't you WANT to keep your democracy?
It’s a sad fact that a lot of our fellow citizens are sleepwalking through the biggest risk to our democracy since the Civil War.
Truer observation can’t be found 🤷🏼♀️
We can thank the many pro-Democracy groups, including Indivisibles, across the country who worked tirelessly to get voters out against Issue 1. One question Jay Kuo that I’d appreciate if you could address: Gov. Death Sentence has for a second time removed a democratically elected state attorney in Florida. How can he get away with that?
That will be fought in court. He already was told he was wrong to remove one official, but then a judge said he lacked the power to order the official’s reinstatement.
How many times does it need to be said? Women, (independents, Republicans and Democrats) of all persuasions do not want a majority of male politicians telling them what is right or moral to do with their bodies!! I never hear the same politicians chastising the men who participated in the pregnancy. We are sick of it!!
I was a poll worker yesterday in a very small (and slow) local election in Michigan so we had a lot of time for talking. My chair person is a Republican, one of the few lately I don't cringe at when talking politics. He stated yesterday that the right is becoming less and less representative of "true Republican values" (which we can all agree) and he said that the gubernatorial election last year was proof of how proposals can swing an election for one candidate vs the other. Now I'm not sure the GOP candidate for governor actually could have taken Whitmer regardless of the abortion issue but the abortion issue clearly did nothing to help her. But he is smart enough to see it as we are now seeing across the country. He is party loyal but very frustrated with the current state of his party. It is kind of satisfying hearing the frustration of someone that has never questioned "his party". This kind of thing gives me hope for what's to come next election- people like him would never vote Democrat but he would consider voting 3rd party if someone he could get behind would break out of the GOP extremist mold. I think the chaos is coming for the GOP and I'm all for it.
My lifelong Republican husband (retired military) voted for Biden in 2020, the first time he’d ever voted for a Democratic candidate (he voted for an independent in 2016). He said he’ll vote for Biden again in 2024 as he’s never going to vote for TFG. I’m glad that some Republicans can see that the former GOP is no longer with us.
The GOP vote yes ads were amazingly misleading. I'm so happy that they didn't carry the day.
🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
Ohio has passed two anti-gerimandering constitutional amendments, by wide margins, that the legislature has totally ignored. The GOP controlled supreme court won't do anything about it.
The GOP controlled court did try to order the maps redrawn. But the GOP acted in contempt of that order and ran out the clock. Our system isn’t set up well to handle politicians who choose to operate outside of the norms.
Not only is the abortion rights issue salient to the population, but the state was going to cause people to lose a lot of rights that they currently have in terms of getting initiatives on their ballots. I think that once rights are codified into law people don't like losing them whatever they are, which is why abortion is resonating so much with so many people. It was and is the loss of a right. Since the Republican party has turned into the party of the loss of rights, that is not a popular platform. Americans like the idea of freedom and losing rights is not furthering these values we all hold.