Ahead of abortion vote, Ohio Supreme Court has ordered a rewrite of some misleading ballot language

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A wildly divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday that only one element of the disputed ballot language for describing a closely watched fall abortion rights question is misleading and must be rewritten. In Tuesday’s ruling, the court invalidated board language that suggested the amendment would limit “citizens of the State” from passing laws to restrict abortion access, when it actually limits state government from doing so. In a majority opinion written by Fischer, the court rejected an argument made by Republican Attorney General Dave Yost that “citizens of the State” and “the State” are the same, on grounds that Ohio has a government “of the people.” Fischer noted that the Ohio Constitution never uses the phrase “citizens of the state,” that citizens and the state are “not necessarily synonymous,” and that the approved language, as a result, “would not accurately tell the voters what they are being asked to vote on.” “Instead of describing a proposed amendment that would establish a right to carry out reproductive decisions free from government intrusion,” he wrote, “the ballot language’s use of the term ‘citizens of the State’ would mislead voters by suggesting that the amendment would limit the rights of individual citizens to oppose abortion.” The abortion amendment, as phrased, would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with what backers describe as “reasonable limits.” The proposal would prohibit government restrictions on abortions and other forms of reproductive care up until the point of fetal viability outside the womb. The abortion rights campaign’s lawsuit challenged five separate pieces of the state’s language, including its reference to the right to “medical treatment” rather than to making and carrying out “one’s own reproductive decisions.” On Tuesday, justices found that wording was not misleading, but “imprecise at worst.” The court also upheld challenged sections of the ballot language that: omit references to forms of reproductive care besides abortion that would be protected under the amendment; and suggest physicians alone, as opposed to a professional determination of fetal viability, determine abortion decisions. The state’s attorneys told the court that when the amendment’s backers objected to the use of “medical treatment” in the language, as a substitute for “reproductive decisions,” they were acting “as if making a decision in one’s own mind is somehow controllable by outside forces.