I was praying I would never have to write the following report. Â But here goes.
Going into this campaign, we had some things working in our favor in Ohio: Ohio is a red state. Donald Trump carried the state in 2016 and 2020. Our legislature is controlled by the Republican Party. The Governor’s Office is held by Mike DeWine, a Republican.
However, despite these advantages, on November 7, Ohio’s Issue 1 was approved by the voters. Legal abortion is now enshrined in The Ohio Constitution. According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, the margin was 57% to 43%. Â If you compare the Ohio vote to last year’s vote in Michigan, the numbers were almost identical.
So, what went wrong?
Politics are downstream from culture.
In the last several decades, we’ve been winning elections, but losing the culture. We’ve put Republicans in the White House. At times we’ve controlled either or both chambers of Congress. We’ve held a majority in most of the Statehouses and Governor’s Offices. But recently, Americans have been voting in favor of unlimited abortion.
The pro-life movement is now 0-7 in constitutional amendments and there are up to 11 states facing this battle in 2024. Unless we get back to the business of changing culture, we will face similar defeats in these states and beyond.
We overturned Roe, but we did not overturn abortion.
While the pro-life movement celebrated the overturning of Roe, Rome was burning. We didn’t foresee the storm cloud on the horizon. We were unprepared for what was coming.
This is what democracy looks like.
After failing to raise the threshold to 60% in August, Ohioans were stuck with a 50% +1 vote threshold to amend the constitution. Manipulating the masses with huge amounts of paid advertising in blue cities isn’t that difficult.
We can’t continue current messaging and expect a different result.
The Ohio campaign made removal of parental rights a main argument. That wasn’t enough. If we don’t make this debate about babies, we’re going to keep losing. We need to prove to the American people that abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby.
Lack of money wasn’t the problem.
We need to close the fundraising gap, but we can’t use lack of funding as the sole excuse for losing.
We cannot count on GOP voters being pro-life.
Exit polls show there is a slice of the Republican Party that, while they are against abortion and think abortion is wrong, hold that the government has no right to “tell women what to do with their bodies.” That sentiment is not just found in Ohio – it’s everywhere. Until we change this, we will continue to suffer losses in our attempts to restrain or regulate abortion, let alone end it.
We have a church problem.
Many pastors didn’t address Issue 1. Their silence contributed to the defeat. Christians need to be taught to be good stewards of our nation and vote based on biblical values. But too often Christians stay home, don’t vote, or vote pro-abortion.
State constitutional amendments need to be treated as national referenda on abortion.
The Ohio Constitutional amendment proposal was the only one in America in 2023, yet most national groups didn’t commit funding or boots on the ground to help defeat it. Until we view these elections as national battles over abortion that we need to fight together, we’re going to continue to lose.
We need our Normandy Beach.
To reverse course in 2024, our movement needs to pick a state and put everything we have into it to win, thus establishing a beachhead to export that victory to other states. This may mean moving resources out of the states we’ve lost to hold ground in pro-life states.
Preparing for the future.
I know it’s difficult for our movement right now, but we need to pick ourselves up and get back to work because the children deserve our defense. If we improve in the above areas, we can have victory in 2024.
Mark Harrington is the Founder and President of Created Equal, a pro-life education and outreach organization based in Columbus, Ohio. Mark travels to universities across the nation reaching students, inspiring young apologists, mentoring future leaders, and introducing cutting-edge tactics to the pro-life effort.
