November 2023 Ohio Issue 1

The 2023 Ohio reproductive rights initiative, officially titled "The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety", and listed on the ballot as Issue 1, was a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that was adopted on November 7, 2023, by a majority of 56.8% of voters. It codified reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution, including contraception, fertility treatment, whether to continue one's own pregnancy, and miscarriage care, restoring Roe v. Wade-era access in Ohio and protecting "the right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability" while permitting restrictions after.

In 2019 the Ohio legislature passed a near-total ban on abortion, without exceptions for the health of the mother, rape, incest, or minors. This statute became active after Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. During the time it was in place, multiple children fled the state for abortions after being raped. One of these cases involved a ten-year-old girl from Columbus, Ohio who traveled to Indiana to get the procedure, generating nationwide attention and becoming a central campaign issue. A state court put the ban on hold while a challenge alleging it violated the Ohio Constitution was heard. Issue 1 was seen as determining whether Ohio's statute would remain; several members of the "no" campaign had called for bans on forms of birth control that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg and in vitro fertilization if it fails.

The "yes" campaign drew support from Ohio medical organizations, doctors, economists, trade unions, editorial boards, reproductive rights groups, and several religious organizations. They argued that a "yes" vote would further limited government, protect bodily autonomy and religious liberty, while preventing interference with patient-physician privacy. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology, alongside other professional associations of doctors, campaigned for Issue 1. In late August 2023, former President Donald Trump, who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, condemned six-week abortion bans, including Ohio's, as going "too far" and a "terrible thing and terrible mistake". Religious groups were generally divided on the issue.

Ohio is a moderately conservative state; Donald Trump easily won the state over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, so the results of the referendum were widely expected to be a bellwether on whether there is a unified American consensus on abortion rights; voters have supported the "pro-choice" side along both bipartisan and overwhelming margins in referendums conducted since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Ohio's neighbor Michigan had a similar referendum a year earlier in November of 2022, and it passed by almost the exact same margin.

This vote was the first of its kind since the Supreme Court struck down the 50-year-old federal right to an abortion. Although similar ballot measures had passed in blue strongholds such as California, and even blue swing states like Michigan, and abortion restrictions had been defeated in red states like Kansas and Kentucky, this was the first time the citizens of a conservative state were asked to enshrine abortion protections into the state constitution. As such, the result of the referendum was widely seen as establishing a national consensus in favor of broad abortion rights, marking a continued trend in ballot measures since the Dobbs decision. Among those between 18 and 24 years old, an estimated 76% voted for Issue 1. Some conservative political analysts and commentators called a continued alliance with the anti-abortion movement "untenable" and an "electoral disaster", and urged the party to adopt a more pro-choice stance on the issue. Exit polling indicated that 61% of Ohioans agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, versus only 37% who disagree.

One day after the referendum, several far-right state legislators proposed stripping the Ohio Supreme Court of judicial review surrounding the issue, instituting minority rule on abortion within the state. If adopted, the proposals would likely generate a constitutional crisis in the state, and are widely considered by legal scholars to be illegal.