One of the foremost leaders seeking to expand abortion until birth has said every abortion is “essential,” every city should have an abortion facility, and that “all barriers to abortion are racist” policies attacking minorities and people who identify as LGBTQ. She also seeks to legalize, normalize, and “uplift” prostitution.
Next Tuesday, Ohio citizens will vote on Issue 1, which would amend Ohio’s state constitution to give every “individual” of any age the “right” to have abortion essentially until birth and make other, unspecified “reproductive decisions.” The groups behind Issue 1, which formed a coalition known as Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights (OURR), support taxpayer-funded abortion until birth, transgender surgeries for minors, and eliminating parental consent and parental notification laws for both procedures — as well as legalizing prostitution. Ohio Women’s Alliance belongs to OURR, which placed the issue on the November 7 ballot.
Critics have accused Issue 1’s advocates of writing an imprecise amendment that would substantially increase the number of abortions that take place in Ohio — and significantly enrich the abortionists funding the measure. OWA makes no bones about its advocacy for expanding abortion. Ohio Women’s Alliance Deputy Director “Jordyn Close (she/her) is a pro-sex, pro-abortion 25-year-old Scorpio,” the group announced when it brought Close on as an executive fellow last May. As deputy director, she works to advance “pro-abortion policy.”
“Every abortion is essential,” Close testified to the Ohio State House Government Oversight Committee last May 26.
“I had an abortion when I was 18. It was the best decision I could have made for my future,” said Close, whose biography denotes her as “an abortion storyteller with We Testify,” a pro-abortion advocacy group. “What it ultimately comes down to is that I just didn’t want to be pregnant, and I didn’t want to be a parent, and that’s all the justification anyone needs,” said Close while speaking against H.B. 598, the Human Life Protection Act.
“Abortion as a medical procedure is no more traumatizing than a root canal,” Close asserted last May. In fact, 55% of women who describe themselves as “pro-choice” struggle emotionally after an abortion, as do 78% of “pro-choice” men. Nearly two out of three women who had a chemical abortion say they would have benefited from talking to someone about the trauma caused by their abortion experience, and one-third of women (34%) “reported an adverse change in themselves, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and thoughts of suicide,” according to a survey from Support After Abortion. A team of Canadian psychologists found post-abortive women had a 142% higher risk of becoming addicted to alcohol, and 280% greater likelihood of drug dependence attributable to their abortion itself.
Close has testified before state legislators that Ohioans who believe in any limit to abortion, at any time, are guilty of promoting racism, sexism, and other deplorable ideologies.
“All barriers to abortion are racist, harmful, classist, and a tool of white supremacy. Bans on abortion are just one of the coordinated attacks by extremist lawmakers to control and punish black, indigenous, and other people of color, as well as queer, trans, and non-binary communities,” Close thundered before Ohio lawmakers last May. “The cruelty is the point.” Close has stated that her intersectional politics aim at “building collective power with womxn, BIPOC, and young folks.” She also calls herself a police “abolitionist.”
Close also seemingly endorses the idea that every city in Ohio should have an abortion facility. “Ohioans should not have to travel out of their state, or even out of their city, just to get a five-minute medical procedure,” she testified before the Ohio Senate Health and Medicaid Committee on February 26, 2019. (Emphasis added.)
Close’s advocacy for taxpayer-funded abortion until birth place her far outside the American mainstream, multiple polls attest. Less than one in five Americans believes abortion should be legal in all cases, according to the Pew Research Center. A whopping 71% of Americans say abortion should not be legal after the first trimester, and 55% of Americans say abortion should not be legal after the child has a detectable fetal heartbeat, at approximately six weeks.
The Issue 1 advocate also stands in opposition to the will of most Americans, and Ohioans, by advocating “sex work” as a positive force. Close (who is now 26) describes herself as “a sex and pleasure advocate … working on destigmatizing and uplifting sex work,” i.e., legalizing prostitution. OWA’s official platform, its Pillars of Prosperity, include “[d]ecriminalizing sex work.” Close has also served as a state coordinator at fellow Issue 1 sponsor Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE), which states, “Criminal justice responses to sex work” stand “in opposition to our core values.” Neither group specifies an age limit to enter “sex work.”
Early in-person voting is underway in Ohio. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by November 6.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.
