Ohio voters defeat ballot measure in win for abortion rights

turning to U.S politics now a referendum in Ohio is being hailed as a major win for abortion access and voters rights too Ohio we did it we did it voters soundly defeated a measure from the governing Republicans that would have made it harder to change Ohio's Constitution abortion wasn't on the ballot but as Magda Gabriel Selassie tells us the result is seen as crucial to an upcoming bid to guarantee abortion access in Ohio when it comes to Ohio's constitutions and making any amendments to it it takes a simple majority uh votes so support of 50 percent plus one when it comes to the voters and with issue one they were looking to raise that bar to 60 percent and this was backed by Republicans who said this was about stopping the influence of outside interest groups but you had many critics that said it was actually a way to cut down the power of Voters and efforts to get abortion rights protected under the state's Constitution so after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade last year you had abortion banned or restricted in many states and Ohio is one of those states that passed a law Banning abortions at six weeks of pregnancy but the thing is it's on hold because of legal challenges so this November voters will decide whether to amend the Constitution to protect abortion rights and it would still only take a simple majority to get that done and that's because of what voters yesterday did and so the groups that kind of were pushing for this and calling for voters to reject this are now celebrating take a listen Ohio ANS is special and we are going to continue to have the right to determine what we want to have happen here because why the majority still rules now some Republican Representatives that supported issue one they shared their disappointment but the fact is you also have Republicans that voted against it that rejected it so you have anti-abortion rights groups now that are obviously unhappy the vote didn't go their way they're now looking ahead take a listen there are a lot of Republicans that are pro-life that may have voted no on this issue that will be with us shoulder to shoulder come November look we have marijuana and abortion on the ballot this November coming up and I just believe our faith-based community and all 88 counties will reject both and that vote is set to take place on November 7th now makta this was a state referendum happening at the height of Summer but political interest was Nationwide it went Way Beyond Ohio and the White House was watching closely too can take us through that yeah leading up to this vote and after the call was made you had members of Congress a former vice president and the current president weighing in so former vice president Mike Pence who is running to be president he released a video calling urging on Ontario Ohio voters rather to pass issue one to get at left-wing interest so he talked about abortion as being one of the issues meanwhile President Joe Biden applauded voters for their decision in a statement he said that issue one was an attempt to further erode the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions so it is clear that abortion rights will continue to be a major issue as we creep closer to next year's election that's Mark Douglas salasi in Washington

Channel: CBC News

Views: 7,397

Keywords: ohio, referendum, abortion rights, vote, issue 1, republicans, united states, cbc, cbc news

Id: a_5DsdGypto

Length: 3min 38sec (218 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023