Fox’s Steve Doocy Asks Ohio Official If He ‘Motivated’ Abortion Rights Supporters To Turn Out With Ballot Measure
Fox News host Steve Doocy asked Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose if he “motivated” abortion rights supporters with his ballot measure to make it harder for voters to amend the state constitution.
On Tuesday night, Ohio Issue 1 — a ballot measure that would have raised the requirement to amend the state constitution to a 60 percent supermajority, and which LaRose has made into a signature issue as he runs for Senate — went down to spectacular defeat. The measure seemed laser-focused to prevent abortion rights from being enshrined into the constitution, preempting any attempts at enacting strict bans and other regulations.
On Wednesday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy interviewed LaRose about the defeat, and confronted him with the reality he may have energized his own opponents:
STEVE DOOCY: So, Frank, how much of this had to do with changing the Constitution for Ohio and how much of it had to do with the fact that it was about abortion? And that got a lot of people motivated to come out and vote who might not have voted about changing the Constitution.
FRANK LAROSE: Well, my message all along was this is about protecting the Ohio Constitution and taking the for sale sign off of it, because, again, out-of-state, dark money, special interests have figured out they can buy their way and they’re not going to pass their radical agenda in our conservative state legislature. So they want to go around that and try to do it via a constitutional amendment. So this is all about protecting our Constitution. But you’re right. One of the things that we need to protect it for is this crazy abortion amendment that’s coming this November. And so that was part of the message as well. Of course, the left used that as a motivator, but I think it motivated pro-life Ohioans to get out and vote as well. Just not enough of them.
STEVE DOOCY: There you go. And come November, it’ll just take 50% rather than a supermajority of 60.
The measure lost by a whopping fourteen percentage points, 57% to 43%.
The proposed amendment does not contain any reference to parental rights. It does enshrine that
“Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” but that, “abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability. But in no case may such an abortion be prohibited if in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
Watch above via Fox & Friends.
