Aftermath of personal abortions were heart-wrenching

This column is hard to write. The subject is personal.

I fear by sharing it in this forum I am opening myself up to criticism and even personal attacks. But I also believe remaining silent — playing it safe — is a disservice to my daughters, granddaughters, and great granddaughter.

So, I write with trepidation, but I write. Whenever I am asked if I am “pro-life” my response is “of course I am pro-life. Who could not be?”

But I know what is really being asked is whether I support abortion.

My answer: “I am pro-choice.” I am for a woman’s right to be the steward of her own body; to be free to make a very personal decision about her physical well-being based on her own circumstances. I remember a time when abortion was illegal. That did not mean there were no abortions, but that they were done in dangerous conditions, using whatever devices might work.

Not only were women risking their own physical lives, but they were also facing personal traumas with few support systems in place. Working in an emergency room in those days, nurses saw the aftermath of personal abortions, and the results were heart-wrenching.

Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, we are back to those untenable days unless voters in Ohio decide otherwise.

Issue 1 allows voters to send a message that Ohio really is the heart of it all.

It cares about women. It believes women’s rights to make personal decisions about their reproductive health and parents’ rights to make decisions about their minor children should be free of government interference. Those rights come with some boundaries that also protect the unborn.

Those boundaries are recognized in the actual Issue 1 amendment language.

Ideally, it should be unnecessary to address this issue in a constitutional amendment, but in today’s world an amendment seems the only way to preserve women’s freedom to make incredibly personal decisions about their own reproductive health. Please, vote yes on Issue 1.

Westerville resident Janice Lanier is a registered nurse.

The great hope held by previous generations of Americans is that their offspring will grow to be better off than themselves in a meritocracy that rewards effort and hard work. It’s the same hope Lauren and I have for our three girls.

But today that hope is hanging on by a thread, compromised by a leftist educational elite blindly devoted to creating equal outcomes. The expanding failure of government schools is jeopardizing the American dream and damaging our future competitiveness with other nations.

Instead, the focus should be on equal opportunity through high-quality education. During my public service as a state senator, I fought to improve Ohio schools and enact reforms that opened access to all.

But there was always an obstacle: far-left teachers unions and school administrators who disdain parental involvement and resist accountability in the classroom.

And as parents questioned lockdowns at school board meetings across America, these groups even persuaded the Biden administration to have the FBI label parents — parents! — as domestic terrorists just because they spoke up for their kids. This collusion is worthy of further investigation.

The terrible result of pursuing these lockdown policies is now abundantly clear: learning loss, falling test scores and a rampant increase in absenteeism, in Ohio and across the nation. These unacceptable results come after school districts received $190 billion in federal taxpayer cash infusions during the pandemic — an incredible six times what they get from Washington, D.C., in a normal year.

The miscalculations in education policy exacerbated a shocking rise in anxiety, depression, homicide and suicide among young people. Yet the same radical leftist unions and administrators that leaped to defend the very worst possible actions during COVID are also resolute in defeating the only policy choice that can save American education: school choice.