Jack Windsor Commentary: Major News Outlets Spreading Misinformation About Issue 1

by Jack Windsor

Despite what the Associate Press (AP) report stated:

• Standard miscarriage and ectopic care are legal and will still be legal and provided to standard if Issue 1 is rejected.
• Abortion permissions exist that protect a mother’s life and major health functions even if Ohio’s heartbeat law is in effect.
• Three legal experts cited in the AP report have contributed over 340 times to Democrats.
• Issue 1 abortion permissions go beyond Roe v. Wade rules.
• Three-fifths of abortions involve women who report being coerced, raising concern that unlimited abortion rules may protect sex traffickers and abusers.
• Infanticide does occur in places where it’s both legal and illegal and may be permitted if Issue 1 passes.
• If the term “individual” in the proposed amendment is interpreted to include minors, gender transitions without burden (read: parental consent) may happen.
• Ohio AG Yost’s legal opinion states that parental rights are not guaranteed if Issue 1 passes—opening the door to minor abortions and gender transitions without parental involvement.

Ohioans will cast their final ballots in person on Election Day either for or against Issue 1 in just 10 days.

Proponents say the proposed constitutional amendment simply codifies Roe v. Wade abortion rules, protecting a woman’s reproductive health.

Opponents vehemently argue Issue 1 goes beyond Roe, aiming for abortion up to the time of birth for matters of convenience while allowing minors to abort pregnancies and gender transition without parental involvement.

Both sides accuse the other of misinformation.

The day early in-person voting began in Ohio the Associated Press (AP) released a story headlined “Ohio Votes on Abortion Rights This Fall. Misinformation About the Proposal is Spreading.”

Last week results from a poll revealed Americans whose trust level is “none at all” in media recorded an all-time high. However, the AP is frequently atop the list of news outlets that garner the most trust.

However, the AP report failed to fact-check misinformation backers of Issue 1 continue to spread and didn’t push back on claims such as:

• Abortion limits won’t extend beyond Roe permissions if Issue 1 passes

• Abortions aren’t coerced

• Infanticide doesn’t happen

• Minor gender transitions have nothing to do with Issue 1

• Parents won’t lose rights if Issue 1 passes

Misinformation from Issue 1 backers outlets should be fact-checking

Issue 1 backers say that current Ohio law doesn’t provide care for women experiencing miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies.

Current Ohio law protects women experiencing these serious medical conditions. A group of Ohio board-certified OB/GYN’s called out the medical misinformation included in an Issue 1 ad. One doctor stated, “there is no law in Ohio that stops us from…caring for mom during an emergency such as an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.”

Even the Ohio Department of Health refutes the false claim in a letter stating that current state laws and regulations “do not in any way hinder the provision of ‘emergency care for miscarriages.’”

Issue 1 backers claim the heartbeat law doesn’t have exceptions for the life of the mother. This is false. The heartbeat law is under permanent injunction by Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins in a lawsuit brought by ACLU of Ohio. A left-leaning Cleveland news outlet article criticized opponents of Issue 1 who claim that the current permission for abortion in Ohio extends to 22-weeks—which is a true claim.

Nonetheless, the heartbeat law does include exceptions for the life and healthy bodily function of the mother as Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost explained in his legal analysis of Issue 1.

The AP article it states:

…opponents of the measure argue that the proposal would still allow for abortions ‘up to birth’ because it lets doctors decide when a fetus is viable or not and because it has an exemption allowing later abortions to protect the life or the health of the mother. Independent medical and legal experts say this argument discounts that doctors have a duty to follow medical science.

• Issue 1 contains a major loophole: the amendment allows for late-term abortions to protect the “health” of the mother; however, “health” is not defined in the amendment. When left undefined, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted “health” to include not just a mother’s physical health, but also her mental health, financial health, emotional health and social health. Essentially, late-term abortions could be permitted for any reason.

Abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. In 2020, less than 1% of abortions in the United States were performed at or after 21 weeks, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Protect Women Ohio, the group supporting a “no” vote on Issue 1, highlighted the fact that Issue 1 will permit painful, late-term abortions in Ohio in a recent ad featuring Ohio abortionist Martin Haskell. Haskell invented the barbaric partial-birth abortion technique in Ohio, and brags that he “routinely” performs late-term abortions at 20-24 weeks, even admitting 80% of the partial-birth abortions he performs are “purely elective.” Haskell gave $100,000 to the campaign supporting Issue 1.

• Colorado’s lack of gestational limits has allowed abortionist Dr. Warren Hern to specialize in “late-abortions” for the past five decades, ending the pregnancies of women who are “22, 25, even 30 weeks along…” (A former patient of Dr. Hern admitted to having an abortion at 35 weeks.)

“The people who are getting abortions later in pregnancy are those who have incredibly heartbreaking situations, either some awful, terrible fetal anomaly that took a while to be diagnosed or some maternal medical condition that puts the mother’s life at risk,” said Mae Winchester, a Cleveland-based maternal fetal medicine specialist.

• The claim that all late-term abortions are “medically necessary” is false. Most late-term abortions are elective, and even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute concluded that most women seeking late-term abortion are “not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”

• Abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell (Ohio doctor who performs abortions through 22 weeks in Dayton) has admitted that 80% of the partial-birth abortions he performed were “purely elective.” He has claimed the other 20% were because the child had a genetic abnormality.

Experts say the idea of abortions ‘up to birth’ is misleading in itself. Terminations later in pregnancy involve medication that induces birth early, which is different from a surgical abortion.

“Abortion at the time of birth, it’s literally not a thing,” Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, previously told the AP.

• Ohio Doctor Martin Haskell invented the “dilation and extraction” method known as partial-birth abortion. The procedure involved, “Dilating the woman’s cervix, then pulling the fetus through it feet first until only the head remained inside. Using scissors or another sharp instrument, the head was then punctured, and the skull compressed, so it, too, could fit through the dilated cervix.”

• A suite of bills, HB 4949 – HB 4959, was introduced in September 2023 to implement Michigan’s Prop 3. It includes repealing the state’s prohibition of partial-birth abortion.

Abusers do not assist their victims. The idea that an abuser could, by coercing someone to obtain an abortion or to carry a pregnancy to term, somehow be protected or insulated from punishment for that coercion is simply inconsistent with the language of the second provision of the amendment…

• Three out of every five women who have had an abortion report being pressured into it. There are no penalties or even any threat of penalty under this amendment for applying this pressure.

• This has happened in Ohio, when a teenage girl became pregnant by her 21-year-old soccer coach. He pretended to be her father in order for her to get an abortion.

Numerous legal experts said the answer to those questions [killing or neglecting a living child] is an emphatic no. Infanticide is already illegal in the U.S., they said, and the amendment doesn’t change that.

• An Ohio legal expert stated that the amendment would legitimize abortion without limits and authorize “infanticide on demand.”

•…