Pro Abortion Groups Crow As Judge Rewrites Ballot Q With Their Language

It’s been a long time since the ACLU has been anything approaching ‘impartial’ in the cases they defend. In many ways they are the defacto lawfare arm of the left’s political agenda.

Any decision they choose to crow about is one that should make anyone NOT on the side of hard-left progressive politics take note.

As you can see by this graphic — they are crowing in a big way.

In the order, Judge Beetem wrote, “The Court finds that certain phrases included in the Secretary’s summary statement are problematic in that they are either argumentative or do not fairly describe the purposes or probably effect of the initiative.” https://t.co/4Oj5hKezxB pic.twitter.com/SYuU5DsHsO

— ACLU of Missouri (@aclu_mo) September 25, 2023

Here what they’re so happy about:

In a case in Missouri, where the wording of a ballot question often makes an enormous difference in the outcome, the judge struck down some language in the question to replace it with wording the other side would find just as objectionable.

A Missouri judge rewrote the ballot summaries for six proposed initiative petitions to institute abortion rights into the state constitution to remove language such as “unborn child,” “end the life,” and “the right to life” — a setback to the anti-abortion rights side.

In a ruling issued on Monday, Judge Jon Beetem wrote that 13 of the phrases used in the summaries written by Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft were “argumentative” and obscured the intention of the amendment to protect abortion rights and other rights related to reproduction.
[…]
Beetem wrote, “The Court further finds that while the proposals will have the greatest immediate impact on abortion, the absence of any reference to reproductive health care beyond abortion is insufficient in that it would cause a voter to believe that abortion is the only health care comprising the initiatives.”

Beetem’s revised ballot summaries begin with an identical first sentence in each, which asks Missouri voters if they want to “establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any government interference of that right presumed invalid.” — WashingtonExaminer [Emphais added]

‘Reproductive health care’ is a loaded term which is often used by the left as little more than a euphemism to slip abortion in as a trojan horse into a larger issue of women’s issues.

Should health care and abortion be treated as independent issues? The pro-life side would say so in the most emphatic possible terms for any of a variety of reasons too numerous to relate here.