Fighting for Reproductive Rights in Ohio
The right of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies is foundational for working women’s autonomy and equality and is under greater threat now than ever in the time since the right was recognized in 1973.
By Anita Waters
The following is an expansion of a presentation made for the Anna Hass Morgan Club, January, 2022.
COLUMBUS, OHIO — The right of women to terminate unwanted pregnancies is foundational for working women’s autonomy and equality and is under greater threat now than ever in the time since the right was recognized in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In this article, we look at the legal status of abortion in Ohio today as it has been constrained by restrictions and threatened with obliteration, and we examine reproductive rights as a working class issue that demands a communist approach.
Reproductive Rights in Ohio
Abortion is still legal in Ohio. About 20,000 people have abortions annually here, a rate of 9.4 per 1000 women of childbearing age (15–44). (The national rate is 13.5 per 1000.) As a result of restrictions discussed below, several clinics have closed in recent years. In the state presently there are only six clinics that offer surgical abortions and three more that offer medication abortions. This leaves many women with long-distance drives to access their rights to reproductive care; 93% of Ohio counties have no clinics providing abortion, and 55% of Ohio women live in those counties. Ohioans have the courts to thank for keeping those few clinics open in Ohio despite legislative and executive attempts to shut them all down. The six-week ban on abortion signed into law by Governor Mike DeWine in 2019 was stayed by a judge immediately as unconstitutional, preventing it from taking effect. In the early days of the pandemic, Attorney General Dave Yost ordered that clinics stop providing all “non-essential” abortions, e.g. those not essential to the health of the mother. The court also overruled that order.
The courts in general cannot be counted on, of course. The U.S. Supreme Court, whose conservative majority was bolstered by the Trump administration’s addition of three justices opposed to women’s reproductive rights, has refused to block Texas’s notorious SB-8 which in effect bans abortions after six weeks, before many women realize that they are pregnant, has heard testimony on Mississippi’s 15-week ban, and is expected to uphold it or go farther and overturn Roe with its decision this June, leaving abortion restrictions in the hands of state governments. Many states have “trigger laws” that take effect if Roe is overturned, banning abortion statewide, including a pending bill in Ohio, SB 123.
Meanwhile, state legislatures are chipping away at the ability of women to access abortion. A total of 1336 state laws have been passed restricting reproductive rights since Roe. In Ohio alone, there have been thirty such laws passed since 2011. Some of the Ohio laws simply add to the burden that women who want to terminate a pregnancy must bear. For example, the state mandates that women must attend in person a counseling session designed to discourage abortion 24 hours before the procedure. This necessitates an overnight stay near one of the few available clinics, adding to the costs for women struggling to take care of their families. State health plans for public employees are forbidden from covering abortions with very few exceptions, leaving women to cover the costs, which may exceed a thousand dollars. The financial burden of course disproportionately affects working class women, who must sometimes delay care to find the necessary resources. Women under 18 are forced to obtain parental consent before being permitted to terminate a pregnancy.
Some regulations target medical professionals. In 2021 DeWine signed a bill forbidding physicians from the state’s public medical schools from working in abortion clinics. Doctors are forbidden from using telehealth appointments to prescribe medication abortions. If another pending bill (SB157) becomes law, doctors who don’t complete the correct paperwork following a procedure face felony charges. Clinics face expensive and excessive requirements for their physical plants, equipment, and staffing.
Adding insult to injury, Ohio taxpayers are forced to support “crisis pregnancy centers” and ineffective abstinence-only sex education. In its current budget, $7.5 million was taken from the funds meant to support poor families and redirected it to these centers. They pose as health care facilities, but are staffed by non-medical personnel, are often located in neighborhoods where young people and working class people live, and provide misinformation about the effects of abortion on women’s health. Former State Representative Republican Candice Keller of Middletown, Ohio, is the paid, full-time director of one of the 100+ pregnancy resource centers. Before she left the legislature, she tried to pass a bill to give donors to such centers special tax incentives.
A Communist Perspective
What is a communist approach to the issue of reproductive rights? We need to approach the problem by analyzing it in its historical context, as part of an ever-changing field of class struggle, and aim to understand the reality behind the appearances and to recognize the contradictions that emerge.
The first observation this approach reveals is well known: abortion bans have disproportionate effects on poor women and women of color. The economic burdens of accessing abortion and birth control are barriers to poor women getting the reproductive care that they want. Unwanted pregnancies cause financial setbacks including incurred medical expenses, lost wages, and loss of benefits and seniority at the workplace, representing thousands of dollars in lifetime earnings lost in what OSU historian Mytheli Sreenivas (2021) calls the “motherhood penalty.” Women who sought abortions and were denied were four times more likely to fall below the poverty line than were women who obtained abortions.
Although these are burdens women (and trans men) bear, the damage is inflicted on the whole working class. Just as the Hugo Gellert poster reminds us about racism, sexism also chains both women and men, by dividing the working class and creating the appearance of different interests. The working class is serving its own interests only when it promotes liberation and equality across both gender and race boundaries.
Second, we should look at reproductive rights holistically in their full context. Not only does capitalist society make it difficult for women to terminate pregnancies, but it also makes it difficult for young people who want children to be able to do so. With no paid family leave, no universal health care, no subsidized child care, and young people buried under mounds of student loan debt, people who want to start families hesitate to do so.
Here we can see a clear contradiction. While the anti-choice forces claim to be “pro-life,” they oppose measures that would actually reduce the number of abortions, like free birth control and realistic sex education. They also oppose measures that would make it easier for families to raise safe and healthy kids, like child care, universal health care, paid parental leave, and the child tax credit.
A communist approach would include attention to structures of oppression. Marcia Ladendorff’s recent article calls out the tendency even among pro-choice activists of seeing abortion on the individual level, “as ‘a very personal decision’” which she says only “distracts, in fact mutes the outrage. A personal decision makes the need for an abortion seem like an individual quandary, not a national disgrace.”
We can gain some understanding of the realities behind the struggle over reproductive rights by looking at some of the key players in that struggle. In Ohio, the enemies of women’s reproductive rights are mostly political actors, not economic ones. Major corporations in Ohio provide their employees with health plans that include abortion, and pharmacies like Kroger, Walmart, and CVS sell drugs like Plan B and abortifacients. What separates those who most virulently fight women’s rights from those that defend them is the partisan divide. For example, those vying to become the GOP nominee for governor go to great lengths to show their anti-abortion credentials. Candice Keller, the former representative who runs a fake clinic mentioned above, is considering a run for governor. One of the front runners Jim Renacci chose political newbie Joe Knopp as his running mate. Knopp is a “Christian” film producer who has made anti-abortion and pro-Trump films. Other candidates like Josh Mandel, Jane Timkin, and J.D. Vance all want to limit women’s rights.
On the other side, members of the Democratic Party like Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and Representative Tim Ryan, candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor and senator respectively, have reversed their earlier anti-abortion positions to fall into line with their party.
Why would this issue split advocates on partisan lines and seemingly not on class? One clue is found in looking at the Republican Party as serving two sets of voters. On the one hand are fiscal conservatives who want smaller government, lower taxes, and less regulation on business. On the other hand is what has been called the “Bible-and-Beretta” wing of the GOP, who vote based on candidates’ stances on abortion rights, gun rights, and cultural issues. Given how unpopular their actual policies are with a majority of voters, the GOP needs the Bible-and-Beretta voters to keep those fiscal conservatives in charge state-wide, where they can serve the economic interests of large corporations.
Organizations Fighting for Reproductive Rights in Ohio
Finally, a communist approach to the issue of reproductive rights entails engagement in a popular front, allying with organizations and opinion leaders who are in the forefront of defending these issues. Fortunately in Ohio we have some strong forces who are on the liberating side of the struggle. Here are some:
Women Have Options is a small organization that is truly grassroots. Founded by Newark Ohio resident Emily Rutherford, it provides transportation, housing, and other forms of financial assistance to women who need it. Something of a throwback to the women’s organizations in the pre-Roe era, like the “Janes,” who worked surreptitiously, WHO has quietly raised funds and helped women in need. WHO is one organization that treats the demand for abortion on the individual level only.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio is the political action wing of Planned Parenthood, the medical care provider. Headed by Iris Harvey, PPAO advocates for pro-women’s rights positions in the Ohio Statehouse and organizes demonstrations. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood itself provides care to thousands of Ohio residents.
Pro-Choice Ohio used to be affiliated with the national organization NARAL but has recently become an independent statewide advocacy organization. It partners with organizations like Faith Choice Ohioans to bring information to the public about abortion rights, and like the PPAO it lobbies for women’s rights in the Statehouse and in demonstrations.
There are also a handful of very strong advocates for women’s reproductive freedom among Democratic elected officials. Most notable here is State Senator Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo), who spoke movingly on the floor of the state legislature about her own abortion experience after having been raped while in the military. She is running for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio this year.
As the fight to protect and expand women’s ability to make their own decisions about their reproductive futures reaches new crises, as it no doubt will in 2022, we have to remain clear in our commitment to a people’s front for reproductive rights for all by working with our allies and demanding justice and equality.
Anita Waters is the chair of the Ohio District of the Communist Party USA and a former professor at Denison University.
Resources:
Marcia Ladendorff, “Repeal, not reform, US abortion law” CPUSA, January 2022
Chauncey Robinson’s “Stopping the abortion bans is a working class fight” People’s World, May 2019
Mytheli Sreenivas “Women can’t ‘have it all’ if abortion is not legal, safe” Columbus Dispatch December 8, 2021.