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The Ohio Ballot Board has created "out of whole cloth a veil of deceit and bias in their desire to impose their views on Ohio voters," one dissenting judge wrote.
The Ohio Supreme Court sided with the state's GOP-led Ohio Ballot Board Tuesday night, ruling that the words "unborn child" could be used instead of "fetus" in the ballot summary of a referendum that would add reproductive rights to the state constitution.
The decision is the latest setback for the referendum after voters defeated a GOP-supported measure in August that would have required a 60% majority to pass constitutional amendments.
"This should have been simple, but the Ohio ballot board tried to mislead voters yet again," Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights spokesperson Lauren Blauvelt told The Guardian. "Issue 1 is clearly and concisely written to protect Ohioans' right to make our own personal healthcare decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and abortion, free from government interference. The actual amendment language communicates that right clearly and without distortion."
"Anti-abortion extremists will continue to lie and cheat in their attempt to defeat us in November—but Ohioans won’t be deceived."
The amendment, which Ohioans will vote on November 7, would guarantee that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: 1. contraception; 2. fertility treatment; 3. continuing one's own pregnancy; 4. miscarriage care; and 5. abortion."
It allows for restrictions on abortion "after fetal viability"—the point at which a fetus could survive on its own, usually around 24 weeks.
However, it stipulates that "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."
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights wanted to share the actual amendment text on the ballot. However, in an August 24 meeting, the Ohio Ballot Board decided on its own language.
The board-proposed summary says the amendment would "prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable."
It also states that the amendment would "always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health."
Notably, the board is headed by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican and abortion opponent who drafted the new language.
"The entire summary is propaganda," Blauvelt toldThe Associated Press when it was first passed.
In a statement, Ohioans United for Reproductive Health pointed out that the board's summary was actually longer than the amendment text.
The group and five other petitioners sued to block the language four days after the board's meeting, arguing that it aimed "improperly to mislead Ohioans and persuade them to oppose the Amendment."
However, the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the "unborn child" language could stay. It did order one change—to swap "citizens of the State of Ohio" for "the State of Ohio" when explaining who the amendment would restrict.
"We conclude that the term 'citizens of the State' is misleading in that it suggests to the average voter that the proposed amendment would restrict the actions of individual citizens instead of the government," the court ruled, as Cincinnati.com reported.
Not everyone on the court agreed, however. Three Republicans would have made no changes, while the three Democratic members would have tossed out the "unborn child" language as well.
Justice Jennifer Brunner said the board "obfuscated the actual language of the proposed state constitutional amendment by substituting their own language and creating out of whole cloth a veil of deceit and bias in their desire to impose their views on Ohio voters about what they think is the substance of the proposed amendment," as Cincinnati.com reported.
"It's unfortunate that advocacy seems to have infiltrated a process that is meant to be objective and neutral," Justice Michael Donnelly agreed, according to Cincinati.com.
The amendment is a crucial test for abortion rights in Ohio and beyond. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, every state ballot initiative enshrining reproductive rights has passed, NBC News observed. Ohio has passed a "heartbeat bill" banning abortion after six weeks, but it is currently blocked by its supreme court. Ohio is also one of the only states in the Midwest region that still permits abortions, The Guardian pointed out.
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The Ohio Supreme Court sided with the state's GOP-led Ohio Ballot Board Tuesday night, ruling that the words "unborn child" could be used instead of "fetus" in the ballot summary of a referendum that would add reproductive rights to the state constitution.
The decision is the latest setback for the referendum after voters defeated a GOP-supported measure in August that would have required a 60% majority to pass constitutional amendments.
"This should have been simple, but the Ohio ballot board tried to mislead voters yet again," Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights spokesperson Lauren Blauvelt told The Guardian. "Issue 1 is clearly and concisely written to protect Ohioans' right to make our own personal healthcare decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and abortion, free from government interference. The actual amendment language communicates that right clearly and without distortion."
"Anti-abortion extremists will continue to lie and cheat in their attempt to defeat us in November—but Ohioans won’t be deceived."
The amendment, which Ohioans will vote on November 7, would guarantee that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: 1. contraception; 2. fertility treatment; 3. continuing one's own pregnancy; 4. miscarriage care; and 5. abortion."
It allows for restrictions on abortion "after fetal viability"—the point at which a fetus could survive on its own, usually around 24 weeks.
However, it stipulates that "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."
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights wanted to share the actual amendment text on the ballot. However, in an August 24 meeting, the Ohio Ballot Board decided on its own language.
The board-proposed summary says the amendment would "prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable."
It also states that the amendment would "always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health."
Notably, the board is headed by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican and abortion opponent who drafted the new language.
"The entire summary is propaganda," Blauvelt toldThe Associated Press when it was first passed.
In a statement, Ohioans United for Reproductive Health pointed out that the board's summary was actually longer than the amendment text.
The group and five other petitioners sued to block the language four days after the board's meeting, arguing that it aimed "improperly to mislead Ohioans and persuade them to oppose the Amendment."
However, the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the "unborn child" language could stay. It did order one change—to swap "citizens of the State of Ohio" for "the State of Ohio" when explaining who the amendment would restrict.
"We conclude that the term 'citizens of the State' is misleading in that it suggests to the average voter that the proposed amendment would restrict the actions of individual citizens instead of the government," the court ruled, as Cincinnati.com reported.
Not everyone on the court agreed, however. Three Republicans would have made no changes, while the three Democratic members would have tossed out the "unborn child" language as well.
Justice Jennifer Brunner said the board "obfuscated the actual language of the proposed state constitutional amendment by substituting their own language and creating out of whole cloth a veil of deceit and bias in their desire to impose their views on Ohio voters about what they think is the substance of the proposed amendment," as Cincinnati.com reported.
"It's unfortunate that advocacy seems to have infiltrated a process that is meant to be objective and neutral," Justice Michael Donnelly agreed, according to Cincinati.com.
The amendment is a crucial test for abortion rights in Ohio and beyond. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, every state ballot initiative enshrining reproductive rights has passed, NBC News observed. Ohio has passed a "heartbeat bill" banning abortion after six weeks, but it is currently blocked by its supreme court. Ohio is also one of the only states in the Midwest region that still permits abortions, The Guardian pointed out.
The Ohio Supreme Court sided with the state's GOP-led Ohio Ballot Board Tuesday night, ruling that the words "unborn child" could be used instead of "fetus" in the ballot summary of a referendum that would add reproductive rights to the state constitution.
The decision is the latest setback for the referendum after voters defeated a GOP-supported measure in August that would have required a 60% majority to pass constitutional amendments.
"This should have been simple, but the Ohio ballot board tried to mislead voters yet again," Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights spokesperson Lauren Blauvelt told The Guardian. "Issue 1 is clearly and concisely written to protect Ohioans' right to make our own personal healthcare decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and abortion, free from government interference. The actual amendment language communicates that right clearly and without distortion."
"Anti-abortion extremists will continue to lie and cheat in their attempt to defeat us in November—but Ohioans won’t be deceived."
The amendment, which Ohioans will vote on November 7, would guarantee that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one's own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: 1. contraception; 2. fertility treatment; 3. continuing one's own pregnancy; 4. miscarriage care; and 5. abortion."
It allows for restrictions on abortion "after fetal viability"—the point at which a fetus could survive on its own, usually around 24 weeks.
However, it stipulates that "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."
Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights wanted to share the actual amendment text on the ballot. However, in an August 24 meeting, the Ohio Ballot Board decided on its own language.
The board-proposed summary says the amendment would "prohibit the citizens of the State of Ohio from directly or indirectly burdening, penalizing, or prohibiting abortion before an unborn child is determined to be viable."
It also states that the amendment would "always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination, the abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant woman's life or health."
Notably, the board is headed by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican and abortion opponent who drafted the new language.
"The entire summary is propaganda," Blauvelt toldThe Associated Press when it was first passed.
In a statement, Ohioans United for Reproductive Health pointed out that the board's summary was actually longer than the amendment text.
The group and five other petitioners sued to block the language four days after the board's meeting, arguing that it aimed "improperly to mislead Ohioans and persuade them to oppose the Amendment."
However, the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the "unborn child" language could stay. It did order one change—to swap "citizens of the State of Ohio" for "the State of Ohio" when explaining who the amendment would restrict.
"We conclude that the term 'citizens of the State' is misleading in that it suggests to the average voter that the proposed amendment would restrict the actions of individual citizens instead of the government," the court ruled, as Cincinnati.com reported.
Not everyone on the court agreed, however. Three Republicans would have made no changes, while the three Democratic members would have tossed out the "unborn child" language as well.
Justice Jennifer Brunner said the board "obfuscated the actual language of the proposed state constitutional amendment by substituting their own language and creating out of whole cloth a veil of deceit and bias in their desire to impose their views on Ohio voters about what they think is the substance of the proposed amendment," as Cincinnati.com reported.
"It's unfortunate that advocacy seems to have infiltrated a process that is meant to be objective and neutral," Justice Michael Donnelly agreed, according to Cincinati.com.
The amendment is a crucial test for abortion rights in Ohio and beyond. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, every state ballot initiative enshrining reproductive rights has passed, NBC News observed. Ohio has passed a "heartbeat bill" banning abortion after six weeks, but it is currently blocked by its supreme court. Ohio is also one of the only states in the Midwest region that still permits abortions, The Guardian pointed out.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions."
As Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to further accelerate already near-record liquefied natural gas exports after taking office next week, a report published Friday details how soaring U.S. foreign LNG sales are "causing price volatility and environmental and safety risks for American families in addition to granting geopolitical advantages to the Chinese government."
The report, Strategic Implications of U.S. LNG Exports, was published by the American Security Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and offers a "comprehensive analysis of the impact of the natural gas export boom from the advent of fracking through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and provides insight into how the tidal wave of U.S. exports in the global market is altering regional and domestic security environments."
According to a summary of the publication:
The United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Over the past decade, affordable U.S. LNG exports have facilitated a global shift from coal and mitigated the geopolitical risks of fossil fuel imports from Russia and the Middle East. Today, U.S. LNG plays a critical role in diversifying global energy supplies and reducing reliance on adversarial energy suppliers. However, rising global dependence on natural gas is creating new vulnerabilities, including pricing fluctuations, shipping route bottlenecks, and inherent health, safety, and environmental hazards. The U.S. also faces geopolitical challenges related to the LNG trade, including China's stockpiling and resale of cheap U.S. LNG exports to advance its renewable energy industry and expand its global influence.
"When comparing natural gas and renewables for energy security, renewables generally offer greater long-term energy security due to their local availability, reduced dependence on imports, and lower vulnerability to geopolitical disruptions," the report states.
American Security Project CEO Matthew Wallin said in a statement that "action needs to be taken to ensure Americans are insulated from global price shocks, the impacts of climate change, and new health and safety risks."
"Our country must also do more to protect its interests from geopolitical rivals like China that subsidize their growth and influence by reselling cheap U.S. LNG at higher spot prices," Wallin asserted. "U.S. LNG has often been depicted as a transition fuel, and our country must ensure that it continues working towards that transition to clean sources instead of becoming dependent on yet another vulnerable fuel source."
Critics have
warned that LNG actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite President Joe Biden's 2024 pause on LNG export permit applications, his administration has presided over what climate campaigners have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis.
In addition to promising to roll back Biden's recent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory, Trump—who has nominated a bevy of fossil fuel proponents for his Cabinet—is expected to further increase LNG production and exports.
A separate report published Friday by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration is expected to fast-track, creating 510 million metric tons of climate pollution–"equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants."
While campaigning for president, Trump vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill." This, as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers, according to The New York Times.
"This research reveals the disturbing reality of an LNG export boom under a second Trump term," Friends of the Earth senior energy campaigner Raena Garcia said in a statement referring to her group's new report. "This reality will cement higher energy prices for Americans and push the world into even more devastating climate disasters. The incoming administration is poised to haphazardly greenlight LNG exports that are clearly intended to put profit over people."
"Academics will make careers out of writing about past atrocities while ignoring the ones happening in real time," said one critic.
In what one observer decried as an "absolutely shameful" rebuff of American Historical Association members' overwhelming approval of a resolution condemning Israel's annihilation of education infrastructure in Gaza, the elected council of the nation's oldest learned society on Thursday vetoed the measure over a claimed technicality.
AHA members voted 428-88 earlier this month in favor of a resolution opposing Israeli scholasticide—defined by United Nations experts as the "systemic obliteration of education through the arrest, detention, or killing of teachers, students, and staff, and the destruction of educational infrastructure"—during the 15-month assault on the Gaza Strip.
However, the AHA's 16-member elected council voted 11-4 with one abstention to reject the measure, according to Inside Higher Ed, which noted that the panel "could have accepted the resolution or sent it to the organization's roughly 10,450 members for a vote."
While the council said in a statement that it "deplores any intentional destruction of Palestinian educational institutions, libraries, universities, and archives in Gaza," it determined that the resolution does not comply with the AHA's constitution and bylaws "because it lies outside the scope of the association's mission and purpose."
Council member and University of Oklahoma history professor Anne Hyde told Inside Higher Ed that she voted to veto the resolution "to protect the AHA's reputation as an unbiased historical actor," adding that the Gaza war "is not settled history, so we're not clear what happened or who to blame or when it began even, so it isn't something that a professional organization should be commenting on yet."
However, Van Gosse, a co-chair and founder of Historians for Peace and Democracy—the resolution's author—told the outlet that "we are extremely shocked by this decision," which "overturns the democratic decision" of members' "landslide vote."
Lake Forest College history professor Rudi Batzell said on social media: "Shame on the AHA leadership for vetoing the scholasticide in Gaza resolution. Members voted overwhelmingly to support, and the resolution was written so narrowly and so carefully to meet exactly this kind of procedural objection. Craven."
The AHA council's veto follows last week's move by the Modern Language Association executive council, as Common Dreams reported, to block members of the preeminent U.S. professional group for scholars of language and literature from voting on a resolution supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
"Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people," Sanders wrote.
With a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel set to go into effect as soon as Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders released a statement Friday saying that he's please the Israeli security cabinet has signed off on the agreement, but highlighted the approved deal "is essentially the same agreement that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government rejected in May of last year."
"More than 10,000 people have died since that proposal was presented, and the suffering of the hostages and innocent people in Gaza only deepened," he wrote.
On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring."
What's more, the independent senator from Vermont said that Americans must "grapple with our role in this dark chapter." The U.S. government, he said, "allowed this mass atrocity to continue by providing an endless supply of weapons to Netanyahu and failing to exert meaningful leverage."
The U.S. has provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military aid to its ally in the Middle East since October 2023, when Israel's military campaign in Gaza commenced following an attack by Hamas on Israel. In early January the State Department informed Congress of a planned $8 billion arms sale.
Local health officials in Gaza say the death toll in the enclave stands at over 46,000. However, a recently published peer-reviewed analysis estimates that Israel's assault on Gaza had actually killed 64,260 people—mostly civilian men, women, and children—have been killed between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024—a figure significantly higher than the official one reported by the enclave's health ministry.
Multiple human rights organizations have said that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide or acts of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The body has also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity,
In his Friday remarks, Sanders called Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel "barbaric" and stated that Israel "clearly had the right to defend itself against Hamas."
However, he said, "Israel chose not to go to war simply against Hamas, but has instead waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people."