On Nov. 7, Ohioans will be voting on one of the most controversial elections we’ve had within the past 10 years. While there are other district-to-district matters on the ballot, the two issues receiving the most statewide attention are Ohio Issue 1, Right to Make Reproductive Decisions Including Abortion Initiative and Ohio Issue 2, Marijuana Legalization Initiative. Heated debates between the Republicans and Democrats in power have dominated coverage of the ballot with press statements, especially regarding Issue 1. Particularly prominent were assertions made by Ohio State Senators Kristina Roegnor and Michele Reynolds.
The two politicians were the primary sponsors of Ohio Senate Resolution 215, which “oppose[s] proposed constitutional amendment Issue 1.” They expanded and rationalized their words through their own “On the Record” statements, featured on the Ohio 135th General Assembly websites. The pieces not only had the emotionally charged language of an ASPCA animal cruelty commercial, but also had paragraphs upon paragraphs devoted to deceitful statements.
Many of the utterances featured in the above statement were fact-checked by a constitutional law expert and ultimately proven to be false or at the least, extremely misleading. They claimed that the bill would remove parental rights; this topic did not appear in the full text of the bill whatsoever. They asserted that abortion would be allowed at any time during the pregnancy; there is explicit language within the bill that says otherwise. Similar statements to theirs made by their fellow Republican politicians were also fact-checked and shown to be deceptive. In response to this, Reynolds doubled down, writing that “proponents and some media fact-checkers say that is not true. Issue 1 would not allow these procedures because they are never explicitly mentioned. They have it exactly backwards.” You heard it here first, even the fact checkers are wrong! Do not trust the independent and respected academics, but rather blindly believe whatever your legislators tell you. After all, if there is one word that everyone associates with politicians, it’s honesty.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Roegner responded to the nationwide backlash by declaring that “it is important to remember the decision did not outlaw abortion. Rather, the court returned the issue to the states where it belongs.” Roegner was clearly very adamant that we not misinterpret this decision to be more extreme than it actually is. A little over a year later, it seems that she shockingly no longer believes this and is more than happy to exaggerate the effects of Issue 1. Who would have guessed that her principles would flip as soon as they no longer benefited her own personal agenda?
One of the nastier arguments against the bill made by Roegnor in her announcement stated that, in regards to possible exceptions for abortion in cases of health concerns, “Anything could be defined as a threat to a patient’s health, especially her mental health. If a patient decides in the ninth month of her pregnancy that a child would be too inconvenient, it wouldn’t take much of a nudge to persuade an abortion-providing doctor that her mental health was at stake.” It’s so great to hear that Roegner sees mental health as a way to cheat the system and not as a growing crisis facing many Ohioans, the very people she is supposed to be a public servant for. In fact, in 2021 “suicide was the second-leading cause of death among Ohioans 10–34 years of age and the 12th-leading cause of death in Ohio, overall.”
Roegnor represents the 27th district of Ohio, the same place I grew up and currently vote in. I know firsthand that nonprofits and organizations in Summit County are fighting hard to mitigate the stigma against mental illness and provide resources for those experiencing these issues. They do not need Roegnor to undo the work they have done by insinuating that poor mental health is not as severe and detrimental as it actually is. We do not need her to accuse individuals seeking abortions of exaggerating or completely fabricating their mental concerns to doctors in order to gain consent for the procedure. I would encourage the senator to do more research into the correlation between mental health conditions and pregnancy-related deaths, as mental health conditions are the leading cause of these fatalities, accounting for a staggering 23 percent of them. So yes, mental health could be defined as a threat to a patient’s health. And it should be.
I cannot help but wonder if Reynolds and Roegnor feel any sort of shame for using intentionally incendiary language and outright falsehoods to manipulate voters. Most reasonable people would morally disagree with constant lying and hypocrisy; clearly these two do not feel the same cognitive dissonance. As Ohioans, we not only should expect better from our elected officials, but we deserve better too.
