ACLU aims to eliminate parental notification rights in Ohio by amending the constitution.

The Left’s War on Parents: How Ohio is Ground Zero

At the beginning of Pride Month, a grassroots pushback against Target emerged, signaling an awakening in everyday Americans. Parents and grandparents are realizing that the progressive left’s number one goal is targeting our children. But while everyone is focused on the slick marketing of Pride Month and the grotesque drag shows performed in front of young audiences, there is a larger threat that the Left is engaged in — weaponizing state law against parents.

Our nation and its success are founded firmly on the belief that states are best suited to stop the federal government from intruding upon our individual freedoms.

States are in a unique position to challenge overreach when it occurs and to stop unwanted outside influences, from both government and non-government entities. The unique power that rests within our states can be an unmatched force for good, but left in the wrong hands, it can become a force for evil. Nowhere is that more evident than in the state of Ohio, where radical Left-wing groups are currently attempting to hijack the state constitution and foist an extreme anti-parent agenda upon Ohio families. These groups have cleverly disguised their war on parents as a ballot measure focused on “reproductive freedom.”

The Threat to Parental Rights in Ohio

The measure would amend the Ohio constitution with language that starts with the assertion that “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” The ensuing vagueness and broad strokes of the full amendment’s text all but guarantee it would be used to strip parents of the right to be notified if their child is seeking an abortion or even sex-change surgery. As Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker notes, the language in the ACLU’s proposed amendment “could be extrapolated to protect access to all sorts of medical interventions, including sex-change surgery or sterilization, and not just for adults.”

Groups that have long fought to dismantle parental rights, including the ACLU, United for Reproductive & Gender Equity (URGE), and their out-of-state allies, are leading this charge in Ohio. And if we don’t stop it now, they will bring the same fight to a state near you next.

The ACLU’s Attack on Parental Rights

The ACLU has fashioned itself as the legal attack arm for the anti-parent movement. This movement and its allies believe your children belong to the state, teachers, school counselors — everyone but you. With the ACLU leading its charge, the anti-parent movement has spent years challenging parental consent and notification laws that apply to minors seeking an abortion, fighting against parents who want to be involved in questions about gender or sexuality that their children might be grappling with, and even overturning curriculum transparency laws that give parents greater insight into what information their children are absorbing in classrooms.

The ACLU’s full-throated endorsement of the so-called “reproductive freedom” amendment in Ohio is a logical next step in their quest to dismantle parental rights. After attacking parents in the courtroom and classroom, they’re now using the Ohio constitution to cut parents out of any number of life-altering decisions involving their children.

The Extremist Anti-Parent Movement

The ACLU’s partner in crime, URGE, has an equally lengthy rap sheet when it comes to undercutting parental rights. For years, the group has publicly proclaimed that “parental involvement laws are unethical and must be abolished” and that “we need policies that get rid of parental involvement laws…” URGE, a member of the Ohio coalition promoting the amendment, is heavily backed by a coterie of well-established progressive institutions, including the New Venture Fund, the Packard Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and many others.

Left-wing groups and politicians remain sickeningly aligned in their war against parents, with support coming from the very top. At the same time, the ACLU and URGE are pushing anti-parent policies in states like Ohio, the Biden Administration is unapologetically advancing its own anti-parent agenda. President Biden has said that “there is no such thing as someone else’s child,” a sentiment echoed by Vice President Harris and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

Protecting Parental Rights

We must stop this madness. Guiding a child’s life and helping them make decisions that are in their best interest are responsibilities that belong to parents, not the government. What is happening in Ohio is a harbinger of what extremist, anti-parent groups will do across the country if we don’t band together to stop them now. A group of pro-family, pro-parent leaders have already formed Protect Women Ohio, a coalition to stop the anti-parent movement in Ohio. The group launched a $5 million ad campaign featuring Ohio parents and their real concerns about being cut out of their child’s life if this amendment passes.

Every parent in the country — every American for that matter — would be well-served to tune in to what is happening in Ohio. There, we have an opportunity to send a clear message to these extremist groups: that families are the backbone of our society, and our responsibility is to protect them, not elevate government bureaucrats and progressive activists over parents.

Mark Meckler is president of Convention of States.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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