It pays to actually read Issue 1

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Sometimes the view of the political situation locally can be worrisome. That brings us to November’s Issue 1. This is the issue that places in the state constitution abortion rights. Since people aren’t reading the full text of the amendment but only summaries, as well as what other people claim the amendment says, we have plenty of wacky craziness floating around.

Despite what groups like Ashtabula County Friends For Life and others claim, “trans-genderism” is not addressed in the proposed amendment at all. That this even comes up is due to torturing and twisting text to where it is deliberately misread in a dishonest fashion. The misinterpreted text from the amendment states: “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: 1. contraception; 2. fertility treatment; 3. continuing one’s own pregnancy; 4. miscarriage care; and 5. abortion.”

What does fertility treatment have to do with this? Is that the trojan horse to sneak in an unfettered right to transform and mutilate our girls through some nefarious agenda? No, not at all. It is actually something sadder and more tragic.

People with genetic disorders such as Down Syndrome and PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome cannot safely have children in Ohio thanks to the abortion ban. If they try to have children and prevent passing on the genetic defects that lead to lifelong health complications, typically they need to involve in-vitro fertilization and selective abortion of non-viable fetuses. Due to that selective abortion as part of the IVF process to try to safely conceive a child that doesn’t carry the genetic defect, pro-life groups in our state effectively decided that some people are less human than others. Due to that abortion ban the possibility of parenthood and bringing life into the world without crippling congenital defects is denied to some of our fellow Ohioans.

What makes this especially ghoulish and cruel is that the leading teams in genetic medicine to make such births possible are based at Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals of Cleveland. PTEN Hamartoma Tumor Syndrome was discovered based upon a patient born in Ashtabula County in the 1940s. You would think pro-life groups would want to bring more life into the world with better chances of success.

Read the actual amendment on the Ohio Attorney General’s website and think about it. There are consequence to this matter.

Stephen Michael Kellat

Ashtabula

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