If you label yourself as a “Conservative”, the odds are high that you’re against the practice of abortion. If you’re a Christian and you’re not against abortion, you might be called a heretic. So, if you’re a conservative candidate for the office of Governor in the conservative heartland of Ohio, it’s practically a given that you’re going to be against abortion to some degree in your political platform. And that is certainly true of the candidates in the May 3rd Republican Primary, as well as the conservative Independent challenger.
Republican Mike DeWine is fond to remind people of how he signed the Heartbeat Bill early in office (which passed, but pends on legal challenges), while ignoring the ‘small’ issue of him having selected Amy Acton as his first Health Director, who had ties to the Columbus Foundation which doled-out money to both sides of the issue, and in October of 2019 in her tenure as Health Director inexplicably rushed approval of a license for a renamed abortion clinic that the State had been fighting for years. To DeWine’s favor, he has signed all pro-life legislation brought to him as Governor, including the recent “Born Alive” Bill 157, which will go into effect in another 60 days and will require doctors to report if fetuses remain alive after attempted abortion.
Republican candidate Joe Blystone caught some flak early in his campaign on April 1, 2021, when he took a bold stance on abortion in a post, calling the Heartbeat Bill a “CRAP BILL” (sic) that still allows “20000+ babies to be killed in Ohio”, and that “WE MUST ABOLISH ABORTION PERIOD! For this I will not falter.”(sic) On his website, he states that he will support efforts to “preserve every life from conception to death.” In his downloadable plan for Ohio, Mr Blystone affirms in writing the belief that conception is the starting point of life, to work towards laws to lead the nation on protecting life, especially if Roe is overturned, and believes that adoption processes should be “effective and efficient” as an alternative to abortion, citing speed and safety issues in the current process.
Republican candidate Jim Renacci has also been demonstrably strong on the pro-life issue, enlisting Joe Knopp as his Lt Governor candidate, who was the producer behind the movie “Unplanned” (currently on a ‘well-timed’ institutional tour in Ohio). On a recent Saturday in January, Mr Renacci listed events in Ashtabula and Medina for Right-to-Life which he was attending and/or speaking at. He has a clean voting record, consistently supporting pro-life legislation while in Congress, and has been on-record to state that he believes “that we must protect the sanctity of life, from the moment of conception on.” Mr Renacci is also opposed to funding stem cell research. Perhaps strangest, then, is why on his current gubernatorial campaign website, there is a complete absence of mentioning anything related to pro-life or abortion on his “policies” page.
Rounding-out the list is conservative Independent candidate Niel Petersen, lead pastor of Harvest Revival Center near Dayton, Ohio. His pedigree obviously comes with a built-in presumption of defense for the sanctity of life, and on his website he states that “Abortion is murder, not free choice”, and that he will seek to “Defund all state funding for abortions.”
I’ve not referred to the positions of potential Gubernatorial team Ron Hood and Candice Keller, as they are still “tentative” for this race and don’t even have a campaign website up. As An Ohio State Rep. at the time, Ms Keller was co-sponsor of the Heartbeat Bill that DeWine signed into law.
