Ohio abortion rights activist explains what’s next after ‘no’ vote on Issue 1

On Aug. 9, voters in Ohio soundly rejected Issue 1 by a vote of 56.6% to 43.5%, according to the New York Times. The Republican-led ballot measure would have made it more difficult to amend the state’s Constitution.

Critics charged that the measure had been introduced in response to efforts to enshrine abortion rights in a constitutional amendment.

Had Issue 1 passed, amendments would have required approval by 60% of voters to pass instead of a simple majority.

Donovan Atterberry, the manager of the Voice Your Vote program for Ohio at New Voices for Reproductive Justice, an organization that says it is “dedicated to transforming society for the holistic health and wellbeing of Black women, girls, and gender expansive people, nationally and in Pennsylvania and Ohio,” tells the American Independent Foundation that the “no” vote on Issue 1 gives him hope for initiatives on abortion and on other issues — particularly those impacting the Black and brown communities.

The Ohio Minimum Wage Increase initiative, which would raise the wage from $10 an hour to $15 by 2028, is likely to be on the ballot in 2024. Ohioans will also vote on whether to legalize marijuana after a petition gathered 127,772 signatures to add the issue to the ballot.

“As a social activist, somebody that’s on the ground that comes from these neighborhoods that are heavily impoverished, that have extensive issues that are not being addressed and may affect why you can and cannot do something, I’m just happy to say that winning by 70% majority just felt good,” Atterberry says.

When the election was over, 700,000 Ohioans had voted early on Issue 1, and over 3 million people voted in the special election. According to the office of the Ohio secretary of state, 57.01 % of Ohio voters voted against the measure, and 42.99% supported it.

“The majority of the United States … they want people to have abortion access. They don’t feel like they should restrict you from having abortion access. Even though we’ve been a red state for the last couple of years, I don’t feel like that’s going to affect the decision that’s coming in November.”

Atterberry has a particularly close connection to the issue of abortion rights.

He explains that in 2012, his girlfriend, now his wife, learned she was pregnant. Already the mother of a toddler, by the time she hit the end of her first trimester, she began experiencing intense pain.

“We did everything that we were supposed to. We went to our appointments. We made sure that we had the necessary sonograms. But we found ourselves frequently going to the emergency department late at night, at least maybe once or twice a week, to discuss the same thing,” Atterberry explains.

By the end of the second trimester and early into her third, Atterberry says, his partner’s pain became unbearable. After multiple trips to doctors’ offices and the emergency room, a physician recommended they have an amniocentesis, a prenatal procedure to extract a sample of amniotic fluid from the uterus to test for genetic conditions. The result was a devastating diagnosis. 

Atterberry and his girlfriend, both 23 years old at the time, were told that the fetus had severe abnormalities. If the fetus survived until birth, it would require a lifetime of hospitalization, and there was a chance his girlfriend could die giving birth. They had a decision to make.

Atterberry says he told his girlfriend that the choice was hers. But she asked him to help her make it.

“If I had to make a choice, I would prefer that I didn’t have to make the decision,” he said. “But if I had to, I said, Well, I don’t want to lose you. … Now, what if the six-week abortion ban was in place? She would have to be hemorrhaging on the table and in threat of her life in order to have a medical abortion at that point,” Atterberry says.

The couple opted to terminate the pregnancy.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and removed the constitutional right to abortion in the nation, Atterberry says many Ohioans have been left confused by what’s legal and what’s not.

The state had a six-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019 that would have gone into effect when Roe fell. However, in response to lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations, the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas granted a temporary restraining order blocking the law in September 2022.

“It has caused a mass hysteria of confusion over the legalities behind whether people can have an abortion within a certain time frame or not. People are confused,” he said. “You can still get an abortion; the six-week abortion ban is not in place,” Atterberry said. “You still are more than welcome to visit your local Planned Parenthood or women’s health clinic. Even with the mifepristone case, you can still receive abortion pills through your physician, you can pick them up from the pharmacy.”

Update: At the request of New Voices for Reproductive Justice, Mr. Atterberry’s title has been updated to reflect changes in the organization’s structure.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.