Should Ohio Taxpayers Pay for Abortions?

The question is pretty straightforward: should every Ohio taxpayer, regardless of how he feels about abortion, have to pay for it?

Yes or no?

Depending on your answer, that’s how you should vote on Issue One November 7.  Issue One amends Ohio’s Constitution to legalize abortion-on-demand through nine months of pregnancy.

But it just doesn’t legalize abortion and stop there.  It says explicitly that Ohio’s official position is not to “burden, penalize, … or discriminate against … an individual’s … right” to have an abortion.

That means Ohio taxpayers have to pay for abortions for any reason under Medicaid.  It also means that Ohio cannot exclude abortion from state health plans offered under Obamacare.

The history of Roe v. Wade – which abortion proponents claim they are just “codifying” – should teach us a lesson.  Within two years of that 1973 decision, multiple federal courts had decided that the federal government had to pay for abortions under Medicaid because, if they didn’t, they were “discriminating” against poor women.  “If rich women can have abortions, poor women should be enabled to have them, too!”

That’s why Congress first enacted the Hyde Amendment, cutting off taxpayer money to pay for abortions.  It took a prolonged fight in Congress to make the Hyde Amendment law.  Finally, in 1976, that happened. 

But the pro-abortion camp did not give up.  They went all the way to the Supreme Court to try to get the Hyde Amendment declared unconstitutional on the grounds it “discriminated” against poor women.  It took until 1980 for the Supreme Court to uphold the Hyde Amendment.

Passage of Issue One will force public funding of abortions in Ohio for any reason whatsoever.  Issue One makes clear abortion is a “right” that needs no further justification.  So, unlike the Hyde Amendment, which only funds abortion in cases where a woman is in danger of death or the pregnancy results from rape or incest, Ohio would have to pay for every abortion for any reason under Medicaid.  The same is true of state Obamacare plans.

People who oppose abortion believe abortion ends a human life.  That’s a serious matter.  Isn’t it basic justice to say that, in a society divided about abortion, it’s not fair to expect people with such serious objections to abortion to have to support it through their taxes?

But let’s say you support abortion.  Being for abortion and for public subsidy of abortion are two different things.

Let’s think logically.  People have all sorts of rights. People have a right to a free press.  They have a right to free speech.  They even have a right to bear arms.

Does that mean Ohio has a duty to buy everybody who wants but can’t afford one a subscription to The Plain Dealer or The Cincinnati Enquirer?  Does that mean the state should purchase airtime for people to speak their minds on their local radio station?  Does it mean that Ohio should buy guns for people who can’t afford them?

Of course not!  Nobody says that the right to something means there is a public responsibility to pay for that right for those who want but can’t afford it.  If that’s true in all the cases I just mentioned, why shouldn’t it be true in the case of abortion?

Do you think it’s fair to force taxpayers against abortion to pay for it?

Do you want to pay for abortions out of your taxes?

If your answer is “NO,” that has to be your vote November 7 on Issue One.

(If this message opened your eyes, pass it along).