Reader viewpoint: Vote yes on Issue 1

Letter to the Editor,

Nov. 7 will be a day of difficult choices. The decision to vote yes on Issue 1 should not be one of them. This is the issue that guarantees reproductive rights to women and their families.

It guarantees a 10-year-old rape victim will not have to carry a fetus for nine months. It guarantees a father will not have to raise his children alone because his wife was sacrificed for an eight-week ectopic pregnancy. It guarantees parents, and not the government, have control over their children’s health. The amendment has nothing to do with gender-affirming care.

The Republican Party used to be a defender of individual rights versus the “nanny” society. Now they have done a complete reversal and are telling us what we can do in our bedrooms, what books we and our children can read, and what kinds of medical decisions we can make.

They tried to keep this issue off the ballot in August, but the intelligent voters in Ohio outsmarted them. Even Ireland, a Catholic country, allows abortion, which is only one part of this issue. There is even talk of them going after contraception if Issue 1 passes.

The scare tactics they are using are ludicrous. Even when abortion was legal all over the United States, most abortions were performed in the early stages of pregnancy and very few late-term abortions were performed, almost always to save the mother’s life, as most major religions permit. The amendment only allows abortion up to viability as it was under Roe v Wade.

I am a senior citizen, but I have granddaughters and great-granddaughters. I do not want to see them go back to dark ages of back alley abortions. Ohioans, do the right thing. Vote yes.

Andrea Tiktin-Fanti

Uhrichsville