TOLEDO, Ohio — Ohio voters Tuesday approved an abortion-rights ballot measure known as Issue 1.
The measure will "establish an individual right to one's own reproductive medical treatment, including but not limited to abortion."
The ballot initiative comes after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and individual states were given the opportunity to decide their own laws on the matter.
Issue 1 will undo a 2019 state law passed by Republicans that bans most abortions after about six weeks into pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest. That law is currently on hold because of court challenges.
The changes created by Issue 1 still allow the state to regulate abortion after fetal viability, as long as exceptions are provided for cases in which a doctor determines the “life or health” of the woman is at risk. Viability is defined as the point when the fetus has “a significant likelihood of survival” outside the womb with reasonable interventions.
Opponents of the measure argued the amendment's wording was overly broad. They also characterized the bill as taking away parental rights and possibly allowing for gender-transition care for minors without parental consent.
Tuesday's victory for abortion-rights advocates comes three months after opponents tried to create a higher bar for changing Ohio's constitution.
An August special election called by the Republican-controlled General Assembly was aimed at making future constitutional changes harder to pass by increasing the threshold from a simple majority vote to 60%. That proposal was aimed in part at undermining the abortion-rights measure voters approved Tuesday.
Voters overwhelmingly defeated that special election question, setting the stage for the high-stakes fall abortion campaign.
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