Ohio is the last state in which voters will decide whether to include the right to abortion, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, into the state constitution.

Abortion access advocates in that state say they have submitted more than enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to protect the right to abortion up to fetal viability or beyond if necessary to protect the health of the child. protect a pregnant person. They had to collect 413,000 valid signatures from voters across the state. Last week they were almost in 710,000 signatures. It was hard to find someone by the end

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signed, said Gabriel Mann, of the advocacy coalition, Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom.

When the Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion decision to the states, reproductive rights advocates took that directive seriously.

Last year about half a dozen states across the political spectrum were blue, purple

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and voted red either to secure reproductive rights through state constitutional amendments or to reject ballots that would have specified that state constitutions do not protect abortion rights. Those elections in California, Vermont, Michigan, Kansas, and Kentucky showed what poll after poll has shown: Most Americans support access to at least first-trimester abortion, even in states with anti

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abortion legislators.

But even if the Ohio

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secretary of

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tate confirms enough valid signatures have been submitted, vote on right to reproductive freedom with protections for health and safety could be thwarted by Ohio anti-democratic push

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legislature. State lawmakers recently passed Number 1, a ballot measure to raise the threshold for passage

initiated a citizen

constitutional amendments

or one put on the ballot by the legislature

from a simple majority to 60%.

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the legislature also wedged in a special election for that measure on Aug. 8, just a few months ahead of a regularly scheduled election in November. If the measure passes (and it only takes a simple majority), it would increase the number of votes needed to pass the abortion amendment.

This is an outrageous ploy to create an unreasonable hurdle for reproductive rights advocates to benefit an intolerant minority. Ohio has had a simple majority requirement for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments for decades. Of the 18 states that allow citizen-initiated constitutional amendments, most need only a simple majority to pass. Such is the case in California. Fewer than a handful of states require more than a simple majority. Florida

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the legislature successfully put a measure on the ballot in 2006 to increase the number of votes needed to pass constitutional amendments to 60% after environmentalists won an initiative to create a high-speed rail system and animal welfare advocates rejected the approval of an amendment guaranteeing a minimum living space for pregnant pigs.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who has said in the past that he wants to raise the threshold for voting on constitutional amendments, told a group this year that there is one reason he supports the current measure: This is 100% about preserving a radical pro-abortion. amendment to our constitution.

The Ohio measure would also change the requirement that signatures collected for a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment not only come from half of the state’s 88 counties

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but of all. That would make Ohio the only state with such a requirement.

The states that voted to protect abortion rights last year did so with a majority of less than 60%. (Though Kansas came close with a 59% vote against a measure that would have banned the Constitution to protect abortion rights.) Passing No. 1 could make it harder for Ohio to get the reproductive rights amendment over that threshold in November .

And Ohio residents need constitutional protection for abortion. A six-week abortion ban has been passed by the

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The law in 2019 came into effect shortly after Roe was overturned and then blocked by the courts, but that could change. Currently, abortion is legal in Ohio up to about 22 weeks gestation with several other restrictions.

But before they can even vote on reproductive rights, Ohio residents will have to go to the polls in August to make sure No. 1 doesn’t pass. The only reason because to be on the ballot is to make it harder for people to protect the abortion rights that legislators would like to take away.

The Supreme Court returned decision-making on abortion rights to the states. But that doesn’t mean we should make it extraordinarily difficult for voters to protect the rights they care about. Ohio voters need to make sure their legislators get that message on August 8.