Buckeye Reporter

The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization issued a press release on August 8 on the X platform saying outside "dark money" influenced the outcome of the vote on Issue 1 in Ohio on Tuesday, in which pro-life organizations hoped to raise the bar for citizen-initiated constitutional amendments in the state. 

“It is a sad day for Ohio and a warning for pro-life states across the nation,” the organization said in a press statement on its website. "Millions of dollars and liberal dark money flooded Ohio to ensure they have a path to buy their extreme policies in a pro-life state."

"A broad coalition of passionate pro-life Ohioans came together to fight parental rights opponents and try to take victory from the jaws of defeat," the organization said. "But the silence of the establishment and business community in Ohio left a vacuum too large to overcome."

Out-of-state progressives sent millions of dollars “to mislead the people of Ohio, the group said, adding that the national playbook of the left is now “attacks on state constitutions.” The pro-abortion left seeks to scare its opponents into submission, and ”So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” the group said.

Issue 1 would have raised the threshold for constitutional amendments to pass from a simple majority of 50% plus one vote to 60%. It would have required constitutional amendment signature campaigns to collect signatures from all 88 Ohio counties. Signatures from only 44 counties are required, the Ohio Capital Journal said. 

Also, it would have eliminated the “cure period” of 10 days for campaigns to gather additional signatures if the original petition submission did not have enough valid signatures, the paper said. Issue 1 was put on the August ballot by the Republican majority in the state legislature to make it more difficult to pass a proposed state constitutional amendment in November allowing for abortions, the paper said.

“Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is a network of more than one million pro-life Americans nationwide, dedicated to ending abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders,” the organization says at its website. It was founded in 1992 by Marjorie Dannenfelser and a group of pro-life women.