COLUMBUS, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) – Notorious partial-birth abortion pioneer Martin Haskell is putting $100,000 behind the effort to enshrine a “right” to effectively unlimited abortion in the Ohio Constitution, which opponents of the ballot measure say is a fitting illustration of what Ohioans can expect if it succeeds.
Drafted by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and backed by the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights (OPRR) advocacy arm Protect Choice Ohio (PCO), the proposed Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety Amendment posits a “right” to make “personal reproductive” decisions, “including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion,” which the state “shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against.”
Earlier this month, Ohio Attorney General David Yost released a legal analysis determining that the amendment would go far beyond the Roe v. Wade status quo activists are trying to restore, and block prohibitions on partial-birth and dismemberment abortions, allow abortionists to target disabled babies, and end parental consent requirements.
The Washington Examiner reported that campaign finance reports have revealed that Haskell, the director of Dayton-based Women’s Med Center (which has a history of patient injuries and medical violations) who has been credited with inventing the partial-birth abortion procedure, made a $100,000 donation to the amendment campaign in March.
“By allowing abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy and eliminating commonsense health and safety protections for women, Issue 1 gives free rein to late-term abortionists like Martin Haskell,” reacted Amy Natoce, spokesman for the group Protect Women Ohio (PWO), which opposes the amendment. “No Ohioan wants to bring that type of extremism and tragedy to our state.”
“Haskell gave $100,000 to the campaign supporting Issue 1 because he knows it is an investment in his late-term abortion practice,” she added, noting that in 1996 Haskell admitted to Congress that he “routinely” commits abortions at 20-24 weeks, undermining the common abortion-industry claim that late-term abortions are rare.
🚨 NEW AD: Meet Martin Haskell, the infamous abortionist who “routinely” performed unsafe, elective late term abortions in Ohio.
Issue 1 would give monsters like Haskell the constitutional right to bring back this barbaric practice.
Vote NO on Issue 1.https://t.co/BPdYWW3XZ3 pic.twitter.com/CQmz4LZrnd
— Protect Women Ohio (@ProtectWomenOH) October 7, 2023
The Daily Signal added that Haskell’s technical description of partial-birth abortion has long been a staple of pro-life efforts to convey the barbarity of the practice using abortionists’ own words: “the surgeon then forces the scissors into the base of the skull or into the foramen magnum. Having safely entered the skull, he spreads the scissors to enlarge the opening. The surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a suction catheter into this hole and evacuates the skull contents.”
On October 6, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Ohioans descended on the state’s capital for the Ohio March for Life, many brandishing signs specifically calling for Issue 1 to be rejected.
PWO is also running a $5 million statewide advertising campaign in hopes of raising awareness of the amendment’s ramifications for gender-confused youth. Natoce has previously observed that the measure’s true nature “is so unpopular that [the ACLU] couldn’t even rely on grassroots support to collect signatures,” and instead “paid out-of-state signature collectors to lie to Ohioans” about it.
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has directed each of its parishes to play for churchgoers a homily by Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, urging all Ohio Catholics to vote against the amendment, which he called a “clear threat to human life and dignity.”