The right to life is on the ballot in Ohio, but victory is not assured

One side had no plan post-Roe v. Wade. But you better believe the bad guys did.

We saw the result play out in blue-trending Michigan last year, when voters made abortion a state constitutional right. Now we may unfortunately see this play out in red-trending Ohio next month.

Ohioans head to the polls on November 7 to vote on not-ironically titled Issue 1, which basically puts the ultimate God-given right up for grabs: the right to life. As Ronald Reagan once put it, “If you don’t have the right to life, all your other God-given rights are kind of a moot point.”

In the wake of the red wave that wasn’t in the 2022 midterms, many of the postmortems blamed the backlash against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe for the GOP’s lack of success. That isn’t entirely true. Single women did vote in droves against Republicans last year, but single women vote in droves against Republicans every year.

Nevertheless, the GOP seems on the run from abortion (as it usually is on every other issue). Even the brash Donald Trump, the great overturner of Roe, suddenly sounds like Mitt Romney on the issue these days.

A winning “yes” vote in Ohio would codify baby-killing protections in the state constitution. This in a place where Republicans currently control the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the legislature.

Is that bad? Seems pretty bad to me, but what do I know?

This is an era in which the right is infected with losing and can’t seem to get enough of it. In one of my all-time favorite movies, “The Natural,” Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) gets up and walks out, disgusted, when the team psychiatrist keeps repeating the mantra “losing is a disease” — because he can’t stomach not winning. But today on the right, we seem to think that losing is a morally superior statement or, even worse, that losing is a financial opportunity.

Where is the energy on the right today to fight on abortion? Where are pro-life leaders mounting a massive publicity offensive to sound the shofar? How many of you reading this didn’t even know this happening in Ohio, but you’ve been made aware obsessively of every single court filing in a Trump trial that may or may not take place before the 2024 election?

We don’t suffer from a lack of energy. We suffer from negative energy. And while a lack of energy may be addressed ultimately in a number of ways, negative energy is simply a back-breaking loss waiting to happen. No people, party, or candidate can ever rise above their own worldview. Negative energy on an issue of great moral weight such as abortion is nefarious. It is a casting out into the darkness. It is the promise of Romans 1.

Even Ohio’s feckless governor, Mike DeWine, seems to appreciate that his state and perhaps the nation are now playing with electoral Armageddon on some level, according to one homeschooling mom who understands the cosmic stakes of November 7.

“We are fortunate to have a pastor who is not afraid to boldly proclaim the gospel or call the current state of affairs in this country what they are: demonic and straight from the pit of hell,” said Kristina Martin. "He began the service (last Sunday) by telling us of a visit he had with Governor Mike DeWine. The governor invited him and 20 other pastors from around the state to the governor's mansion in what the governor described as a final act of desperation regarding Issue 1 on the November ballot. Governor DeWine pleaded with these pastors to get the word out to their congregations about voting ‘No.’”

Is this what you thought the coattails of overturning Roe would feel like? A world where Mike DeWine is somehow your huckleberry, yet an organization like Ohio Right to Life has so lost the plot post-Roe that it actually fired one of its spokespersons for being too confrontational during the battle to get Issue 1 on the ballot?

Only the right could take arguably its biggest victory since the Cold War and turn it into Little Bighorn. You have to try to lose a genocidal vote in a state as red as Ohio. Trust me, I’m a 40-year Detroit Lions fan. If I’m an expert on anything, it is losing. And losing is a disease, truly.

To quote another favorite film, “The Green Mile,” the prison guard played by Tom Hanks describes the weight of the decision looming before him in terrifyingly clear-eyed terms: “On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say?”

Well, Ohio? We’re waiting.