Last night, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to abortion. The tally wasn’t close: 2,186, 962 favored the measure, or 56.6%, while only 1,675, 72, or 43%, opposed putting a right to abortions in the state constitution.
The first point to understand is that this is not a rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs over-ruling Roe v. Wade, but the exact result the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution intended. It is and always whould have been the states’ call: abortion is not a federal issue, and the national Constitution is silent on it, despite the political and ideological dishonesty of Roe. What Ohio did is exactly what the Supreme Court ruled it should do: let voters, not courts, decide the issue.
Logically, this decision should take abortion out of the 2024 election in Ohio, and if Republicans are smart <cough> that’s what they should say. “It’s in the constitution now, and we’ll follow the law. I still believe abortion is wrong in most cases, and I will work toward making that clear enough that Ohioans change the law, but right now, the decision has been made.”
The nation is, as should have been predicted, heading to the kind of state-by-state division that it experienced regarding slavery before the Civil War. That’s appropriate, because the issues are similar: one faction insists that a vulnerable group of human beings deserved to have their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness respected and protected, and another faction insists that their own interests should cancel those rights, or that those rights don’t exist at all.
Where the ethical balance stands is indicated by the Associated Press’s deceitful headline: “Ohio voters enshrine abortion access in constitution in latest statewide win for reproductive rights.” If abortion supporters really believed their own narratives, they wouldn’t hesitate to call abortion what it is. “Reproductive rights” is just the successor cover-term for the equally dishonest “choice.” The Ohio amendment declares that women have the right to kill the unique human life they spawned as long as they do it quickly enough. That’s what it does, and yet the measure’s supporters either can’t face the truth, or choose to hide it with rhetorical sleight-of-mouth.
Still, abortion opponents have no one to blame for this result but themselves and their own lack of commitment to human life. About 3.8 million Ohioans voted last night, the Ohio Secretary of State’s website says, 400,000 less than the 4.2 million Ohioans who voted in 2022, or almost enough to bridge the gap in the pro-abortion vote. Nearly 6 million Ohioans voted in the 2020 Presidential election, and that was still far fewer than a majority of eligible voters. The tragic truth is that those who want the option of rubbing out nascent life in the womb want that option more than abortion opponents care about saving those imperiled lives.
Finally, I must say that I find the glee expressed on those faces celebrating the victory for the abortion rights amendment repulsive, especially that of the young boy in the front. “This is great! Now people can kill someone like me before they’re born!”
Congratulations, kid.
Ethics Alarms 
Condoms are cheaper, less inconvenient, have a relatively low mortality rate, and not as physically intrusive as abortions.
What am I missing?
Condoms used properly have a 73% success rate (statistic off the top of my head, but in the 70’s is accurate), which jumps up quite a bit with the use of a spermicide, but still falls short of 99% protection. Thus many pregnancies occur unintentionally during condemn use. And if someone was doing everything they could to prevent pregnancy (except, you know, NOT having sex), then by golly, they need a back up to take care of the problem. And why would we want to use condoms, anyway? They spoil the mood, they don’t feel as good, and blah, blah, blah.
I think the Guttmacher Institute said that a little over half of abortions are the result of unprotected sex (gee, sex makes babies? who knew?!?). But I heard elsewhere (and would have to confirm this) that a lot that unprotected sex occurs when a couple, who had been contracepting, broke up, went off contraceptives, then came back together and could not resist having sex. (Of course, this has much more to do with the pill than condoms.)
The ultimate problem is this. Contraceptives teach us to eschew self-mastery in favor of using safeguards. When contraceptives fail, and they eventually will, then there is an unintended pregnancy to deal with. Many people want to keep eschewing self-mastery, and so opt to have the baby killed. Condoms don’t actually help the problem. And I believe there’s a fairly causal relationship between the legalization of contraceptives and the eventual legalization of abortion.
Ryan,
“Condoms don’t actually help the problem.”
A quick google search says condoms are 98% effective against pregnancy and STDs. Even if less, they do actually help the problem. So does the self-mastery act of pulling out and intimacy without intercourse.
“And I believe there’s a fairly causal relationship between the legalization of contraceptives and the eventual legalization of abortion.”
People, young people, are going to smash. It is a fact of life and the introduction of condoms helps to mitigate STDs and baby-making, a lot.
It would be interesting to research the relationship between condoms, frequency of sex, and abortion.
Comparatively, do seatbelts encourage speeding or just reduce injuries? If they encourage speeding, would you be for or against?
Condoms are the only birth control method not covered by Obamacare. The reproductive and sexual health experts brought together by the Obama administration felt that all other forms of birth control needed to be promoted over condoms. The resultant increase in STD’s showed the wisdom of the experts.
Also female sterilization is covered, but vasectomies are not. This is what women say when they claim that they don’t have the same reproductive rights as men.
If condoms were covered by insurance, they would cost about ten dollars a piece.
Maybe they’ve increased the efficacy of condoms in recent years. My last real deep dive into contraception was probably 10 years ago by now. And I believe they’ve been making condoms with spermicides already included.
Regardless, the thought that kids are going to have sex so all we have to do is protect them has led to an explosion of teenage sexual activity, which has also caused an explosion of teen pregnancies, teen STDs, and teens having abortions. The primary driver of late of teens having less sex is actually how much time they spend on their smart devices instead of relating directly with another human person.
Yes, the sex drive is immensely powerful. And it should be, because it is the means by which we continue the species. But that also means it has to be respected as the means by which we continue the species. Not ever sexual action leads to babies, but sex leads to babies, and in case there’s any question, those are human lives being generated.
I do believe that seat belts lead to an increase in speeding, or at least the did at the time they were adopted. There’s a principle that states we have a certain level of risk tolerance, and if we take measure to reduce risk, we act in a way that brings up to that edge of risk tolerance. Take my move to Ohio. In Wyoming, the highway patrol would nail you on I-80 if you were going 6 mph over the speed limit. So you set the cruise control to 5 over so you were always under where the patrol would bother pulling you over. In Ohio, so many people drive at 10+ over the speed limit on the interstates that it is rare for the patrol to pull over anyone going that fast, as long as the flow of traffic is fairly close. So now I drive at 10 mph over instead of 5, because my perception of risk has been lowered, and I’m willing to take on a riskier action to get back to my tolerance level.
Probably one of the most convincing studies I saw tracked two countries that dealt with HIV when it broke their borders. I’ll have to dig to recall which countries they were, but they were nations of comparable population and had the first native cases around the same time. One went with a condom-only approach, and the other went with the ABC approach (abstinence before marriage, be faithful in marriage, and only as an absolutely last resort consider condoms). The results were dramatically different. The country that promoted condoms only saw an explosion of HIV. The other country saw HIV rates much, much smaller. That’s because encouraging the use of condoms (or any contraceptives) encourages people to disregard self-control in sexual matters, and all the failures of contraceptives, or the inability to restrain when contraceptives are not available, causes an explosion in unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs.
Are kids going to have sex? Some are, certainly. But most kids will try to live up to expectations. If we have no expectations for them, they’ll definitely live up to that. And isn’t it odd that there’s a parallel here with drug addiction? In those places that have set up safe spaces for drug use, there’s suddenly a huge uptick in drug use, along with the proliferation of drug users everyone the streets and a massive problem of used needles littering the landscape?
Ryan,
“Regardless, the thought that kids are going to have sex so all we have to do is protect them has led to an explosion of teenage sexual activity, which has also caused an explosion of teen pregnancies, teen STDs, and teens having abortions.”
I’m not so sure about that as the primary driver. My first impulse is to blame a cultural shift or as some might describe, culture rot, with the destruction of the nuclear family leading the way.
Seatbelts: I asked if you would be for or against. I think seatbelts vs condoms is a good analogy.
Your HIV two country study: I would have to analyze the study because from what you present, there are way too many unknown variables to even evaluate. So, focusing on your conclusion – “That’s because encouraging the use of condoms (or any contraceptives) encourages people to disregard self-control in sexual matters,”
I’m sure there is some degree of truth in that, the percentage of which is unknown to me, and probably you as well. There may even be a strong correlation, but considering how young people view sex these days, especially *strong empowered” women with high body counts, what do you suggest is superior to condoms?
It would be wonderful if we could rewind the cultural clock back to when sex was considered more sacred, women valued their bodies/sexuality enough to say NO more often, and sexual imagery etc. wasn’t shoved down everyone’s throats online and on screen.
I don’t consider the drug/needle analogy to be helpful because you are talking about physical/emotional ADDICTION.
Appreciate your well-considered response, btw.
Batman,
And I appreciate your replies! Reasoned dialogue is always good.
For seatbelts, I can’t give a quick yes or no answer without qualification, but I’ll try to explain as quickly as possible. Restraints intended to reduce damage in the event of a crash are in and of themselves morally neutral. Thus the mandate of their use is a prudential judgment. If they are shown to increase the overall harm (such as more crashes from more reckless behavior, amounting to more hospital bills, even if the severity of the crashes are reduced), then it is not prudential to demand people wear them. If, on the other hand, they do greatly reduce harm even with the increased recklessness on the road, then it is prudential to insist people wear them.
However, it should also be noted that the calculations have to include a great many more factors than injury to the driver or the passenger. More reckless driving could result in more pedestrian injury, or more property damage, or the like. The increase in recklessness might be mitigated by traffic laws and enforcement that outweigh the reduced perceived risk the seatbelt brings.
But I will say this: holding the crash as a constant, a person weathers the crash better wearing a seatbelt than not wearing a seatbelt. In a similar fashion, if you hold the rates of sexual intercourse constant, condoms do indeed reduce the number of pregnancies and the spread of STDs. But in both cases, the question is not how effective are they, but whether their introduction increases the risk overall, and whether the use thereof represents an intrinsic evil. Consider this. If everyone wears seatbelts every time when driving, people are able to keep driving normally. If everyone uses a condom for every sexual act, the human species would die out in a handful of generations. Thus there is something different between the two actions. They both act to protect, but one acts as a safeguard that does not inhibit the purpose for which one needs a seatbelt, namely driving. Condoms, though, inhibit the purpose of sex, which is reproduction and bonding.
What would I say is superior to condoms? Natural Family Planning, of which there are several varieties. It involves tracking a woman’s fertility cycle and targeting intercourse when she is in her infertile phase. But you’re right that in our sex-drenched culture, it is unbelievable the amount of pressure is there to have sex, to allow sex in a variety of circumstances that would have horrified previous generations, and to subsidize the consequences of risky sexual behavior. Going back is going to be a long, painful slog, though perhaps going back isn’t the right word. Using the knowledge we have from the failure of the sexual revolution, we can forge a path forward that respects human sexuality, restores its proper role in the nuclear family (i.e. between husband and wife), and avoids the mistakes previous generations made of the more puritanical nature.
I think the comparison with drug addiction is very apt, for the reason that so many people I’ve spoken to about abortion and contraception and (God forbid!) abstinence act like they think they will die if they can’t have sex often enough. If you truly believe you cannot have a happy life without consequence-free sex, that sounds awfully close to an addiction to me.
As a note, this is a very personal subject to me, because I messed up my life misusing my sexuality, and I spent years studying (including Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body) human sexuality, what is healthy, what is not, how we ought and ought not behave with our sexuality, and it seems clear as daylight at this point that our culture is hooked on sex like an addict is on cocaine.
I said this morning that Republicans should embrace the idea of holding constitutional ballot initiatives at the state level. That would prevent democrats from using it as a edge issue in every election. It is obvious that because abortion as a successful wedge issue is why ultra blue states have never proposed modifying their constitution to protect this so-called “right”.
I also found your comparative reference to the political divide in antebellum America quite appropriate.
Good thing for Ohio that we don’t have a Radical Republican president willing to unilaterally issue a “Proclamation of the Rights of the Unborn” and overturn this “states’ rights” decision. He might send federal troops to Ohio and suspend habeus corpus until the matter is resolved by warfare.
I was bitterly disappointed with the results (almost to the point that I want to bail on Ohio and move back to Wyoming). The constitutional amendment not only enshrines abortion into the constitution, but is expansive enough in its language that this extends to anything else that touches on sexuality, including “gender affirming care”. What this amendment has the potential to do, depending on court interpretations, is prevent not only the state but even parents from having any say on what kind of treatments their children receive, at any age. The crafters of the amendment were careful to never include the word “woman,” because in Ohio a woman is a defined term, and only used the term “individual”. So the amendment can apply to those who are at any age. And while it does have a clause about the state being able to make some restrictions, they have to be demonstrated to be “least restrictive means…with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care”.
The pro-choice side outspent the pro-life campaign by over $20 million. Once again, the left had a robust game plan, feet on the ground, strong messaging, and riling up everyone because the conservative Ohio legislature dared slap restrictions on abortion. (Granted, they were some of the most stringent in the nation, and I’ve heard several Ohioans say they felt the legislature overreached.)
But, to add icing to the cake, Ohio also voted to legalize marijuana, and by a slightly larger margin. Now Michigan gets to see its revenue dry up as Ohioans get to stay at home and toke it up.
It moght even be a basus to strike down vaccine mandates.
I see that kid a little differently. Yes there appears to be a somewhat glee on his face, but it seems a reserved or confused expression. There is NO WAY a young boy of that age can truly grasp the real significance of what is emphatically occurring all around him by that hoard of screaming adults …that is, the real significance of the grotesque, horrid murder (sorry, end) of an unwanted baby. Obviously, “he” was “wanted” and is why he’s alive. The thousands of living babies just like him won’t be so fortunate. He really doesn’t understand the brainwashing job that has been imposed on him to his harm.
…to this Country’s harm; to humanity’s harm.
I’ve never understood the ferocity of pro-abortion people. It makes them appear to be ghouls while they act as if they consider themselves the reincarnation of Joan of Arc.
When good people do nothing (or at least, not enough), evil triumphs. I expect the construction of altars to Moloch to begin any day now. Shame on anyone in Ohio who failed to stand up and oppose this amendment. What a dubious distinction for the state to enshrine child murder in constitutional law.
Funny how the political party (and the segment of the population) that typically opposes the legally sanctioned execution of the vilest, most dangerous criminals, even after they have received the unquestioned full benefit of due process, will so brazenly embrace the summary murder of the most innocent and defenseless.
There will be much to answer for.
“Funny how the political party (and the segment of the population) that typically opposes the legally sanctioned execution of the vilest, most dangerous criminals, even after they have received the unquestioned full benefit of due process, will so brazenly embrace the summary murder of the most innocent and defenseless.
There will be much to answer for.”
Good is called evil and evil is called good. It’s one more grain of sand in the ever-growing pile that proves the End of Days is approaching. And yes, there will be a heavy price to pay for this.
For the Dem leadershio, it is not even about bodily autonomy.
they fully embraced mandating vaccines in places where they were never mandated before.
Here is an example of pro-choice thinking.
How do you counter arguments like this?
As much as I detest the practice of abortion we should take solace in knowing that these progressives will raise fewer children.
Perhaps we should adopt their rhetoric on the issue of self defense. If their are to be no limits on a female’s right to choose why should there be any limits on my right to self defense? The end result is the same is it not.
There not their -dammit
“There” not their
…fewer children… This is why I am now embracing and amplifying and defending abortion rights.
While they decrease their population, I continue to procreate…. We can easily out number them within 2 generations by living out the valuing of humanity.
In these elections with a lot of out-of-state pressure, the press always sides with the out-of-state people. My state has had several of these groups. The first came in and pushed this ‘notification’ of the victims when their perpetrator was moved, had a parole hearing, was released, etc. They modeled it after the one that California had recently passed. They pushed it REALLY hard. Our press kept saying that it was showed how backward our state was that we didn’t have this in place already. The press shamed our state until the people passed the bill. However, our state already had such notifications, by e-mail and text message. The bill that passed mandated it be sent by paper mail and you had to set it up by paper mail. We had a system where you could go online, set up notifications for a prisoner, get text or e-mail updates, and see all activity for that prisoner online instantly. Our state had to dismantle this system and make a new, paper-based one.
The second group came in and wanted to destroy our family farms. They pushed ads touting that they were local family farmers and telling us we needed to pass this bill or our family farms would be destroyed. In fact, the bill would have allowed out-of-state environmental groups to destroy our farms with out-of-state special interest lawfare.
Voting is easy now. I just vote the opposite of what the TV news tells me to.
It is a shame that, so far at least, there is no argument here in favor of a woman’s right to choose abortion. Nor, for that matter, an argument in support of a man’s right to demand an abortion in lieu of accepting parental responsibility for a child. It is, perhaps, a reflection that this site has become very lopsided, at least on some issues.
The problem with this is that, without the challenge of opposing views, we can get complacent in our beliefs. We become content with our arguments and don’t see a need to sharpen them.
Compare, for example, the intellectually healthy give and take in this post on condoms and other contraceptives versus the lack of same on abortion.
I don’t have a ready solution. But, we would serve ourselves well by encouraging those with progressive viewpoints to participate and by treating them with respect when they do.
Had I the energy and desire, I could act the progressive (one doesn’t have to be one thing to act that one thing; cf. Sheridan Independent School District and ‘Oklahoma’ on this site). I have neither the energy nor the desire, so I’ll simply pose this question: given that we concede to government the right, in limited circumstances, to end innocent human life when a greater good is perceived (by some), why cannot we cede that right to women, in limited circumstances when a greater good is perceived?
given that we concede to government the right, in limited circumstances, to end innocent human life when a greater good is perceived (by some), why cannot we cede that right to women, in limited circumstances when a greater good is perceived?
In general, the answer to this is that government and individuals have different roles. Government exists to set the boundaries, enforce the boundaries, and exact penalties for the failure to comply with those boundaries regarding interpersonal interaction. Individuals cede that responsibility to the government so that there is an agreed upon entity to handle those interpersonal disputes, for otherwise everything becomes vigilante justice. Whoever is stronger wins.
The view of government we have is that because the strong and the powerful can impinge on the rights of weaker individuals, government intervenes to protect the rights of the weak. I know there are other forms of government out there, ones that favor the strong and crush the weak, or favor the clan at the expense of outsiders, and so on. But here we formed a government of the people, by the people, for the people, with the thought that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We profess that the government exists to ensure that the enumerated rights of the weak are protected against the strong. To turn and delegate the decision making to the individual returns the power to the strong to crush the weak as they see fit. It is anathema to what our nation stands for.
Before any consideration can be given to a woman’s so-called “right to choose”, the question needs to be settled whether a child in the womb is one of those human individuals that have the right to life. The government so far has been ambiguous on this, allowing abortion at times, but charging people who kill a pregnant woman with double homicide. The child is considered a person if it is wanted, and soulless clump of cells if it is not. Efforts to draw a line where we have a human person deserving of legal protection and where we have a human being with no rights consistently run into contradictions.
A woman’s “right to choose”? Choose what? To kill the child in her womb. Whatever dire situation that woman is facing in carrying the child to term, she could be potentially facing with her born children. Poverty? Emotional burden? Abandoned by the father? Loss of job opportunity? Loss of sex partners? If any of those things justify a woman in killing the child in her womb, why do they not justify her killing her two-year-old?
As to a man’s “right” to insist on an abortion, I have a hard time seeing that as anything other than abuse. A man who is willing to have sex with a woman and not own up to the natural consequences of sex abuses the women he sleeps with. Plain and simple. He states, “I’m willing to force you into painful situations, and I will not support you at all through them, all so that I can gratify myself with your body.”
1. Look up abortion. In the main essay on the issue, I designated this an ethics conflict, meaning there were valid ethical considerations on both sides. Sure, there are ethical arguments for allowing abortions, but to accept a right, one has to dismiss two of the three primary ethics systems, reciprocity and absolutism, and default to extreme utilitarianism, that abortion is “a necessary evil” as Still Spartan put it. The predominance of anti-abortion sentiment here demonstrates that the issue is being examined fairly without deception. Put it this way: if one accepts abortion for what it is—killing a developing human being—and the woman’s problem for what it is—the need for self-determination and autonomy—the latter loses, because it requires taking taking a human life. So the “choice’ side refuses to acknowledge reality, making the advocacy dishonest and unethical itself. On the other side of the issue, however, anti-abortion advocates can be completely open about what is the cost of severely limiting the abortion option: yes, it is a serious hardship on the mother and often the father, BUT human life gets priority in all ethical systems.
“…given that we concede to government the right, in limited circumstances, to end innocent human life when a greater good is perceived (by some), why cannot we cede that right to women, in limited circumstances when a greater good is perceived?”
Please list some examples of when we allow our government to end innocent life for the greater good. I’m guessing “war” might be one answer, but 1) that’s pretty obvious and 2) “innocents” in another country that has instigated war on the US may not be nearly as innocent as we initially think. Are there others?