"Frozen Embryo Safety"
Cartoon Tuesday, and How GOP Politicians are Trying to Rewrite THEIR Recent History
- By Kevin Necessary
A Note from David: On IVF Treatment, Politicians Try To Erase Very Recent History — Don’t Let Them!
As Republicans scramble from yet another toxic, horrific consequence of the post-Dobbs world they created and cheered on, we should do more than just remind voters that these same Republicans all celebrated the end of Roe (which opened the door to the Alabama IVF decision) , and that a majority of the GOP caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to destroy access to modern IVF treatment.
We should also NEVER let voters forget that in states like Ohio, these extremists have taken similar positions on ballot measures, even if they now want to erase that history.
For example, all three GOP candidates for the US Senate now say they oppose the Alabama ruling.
BUT….all three loudly opposed Ohio’s Issue 1 last November, which (when it passed thanks to the voters), created an individual constitutional right for Ohioans’ to make their own decisions when it comes to fertility treatment—free from government interference by politicians and state courts.
Like every major Ohio Republican in office or now running for office, these three Senate candidates opposed Issue 1, which means they opposed the establishment of that new right. They called it too extreme.
And they want you to forget that now. Don’t.
But it gets even worse.
One of those candidates, Frank LaRose, was so eager to conceal the fact that Issue 1 protected Ohioans’ right to make their own decisions on fertility treatment—because he and conservative groups KNOW that voters strongly SUPPORT that right—he erased that explicit reference to “fertility treatment” from the Ohio ballot.
He (and a state senator now running to replace him as Secretary of State) literally manipulated the ballot language, deleting that phrase entirely from the ballot, even though it was a core part of the Amendment.
Just look. Here was the Amendment itself (now part of the Ohio Constitution):
—and as I marked up last Fall (below), here’s what their manipulation did to that language: they took the very simple, explicit list of what personal decisions were protected by the Issue 1 Amendment— including “contraception” and “fertility treatment”—and replaced it with the only word they wanted the voters to see: “abortion.” And that became the “summary” (which was longer than the Amendment itself) that appeared on the ballot.
And it’s obvious why they did this: cynically, they knew Ohioans strongly support the freedom to make their own fertility decisions (as their own current political reaction shows), so they did their best to conceal that fertility treatment was at stake in Issue 1.
And I don’t recall a single GOP politician complaining about this erasure, even though they now say they support fertility treatment.
It’s all next-level sick.
Thankfully, the voters saw through it last November.
Just like we have to make sure they see through it again now, and going forward.
So, be clear; if these three and all the other GOP politicians had gotten their way on Issue 1, Ohioans would have absolutely no protection from the Ohio Supreme Court or extreme Ohio legislature imposing the exact same view that the Alabama Court just imposed on its people.
And this will likely be true in many of the other states where post-Dobbs referenda to protect reproductive freedom are taking place.
Bottom line: they caused this by pushing to end Roe and getting us Dobbs. They pushed it in the US House. And once Dobbs opened the door, they opposed protecting Ohioans’ right to protect their own freedom to make fertility decisions—going so far as to conceal that that was even at stake last November, when the actual language of the Amendment (and now our Constitution) was so explicit.
So no, fellas, you don’t get to run away from your toxic positions now that Americans are waking up to them.
We see through it all.
We will hold you accountable.
Last week’s “Risk” cartoon generated a strong response:
To read more about the process Kevin used to create it, along with other concepts he played with, read below:
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