Bernie Moreno’s bold strategy: Going after Ohio women voters on abortion rights

U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno (R-OH) speaks to guests during a campaign rally with Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) at Middletown High School on July 22, 2024 in Middletown, Ohio. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Ohio Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno accomplished something this week I didn’t even know was possible anymore for my jaded journalist’s mind: He truly surprised me.

There I sat at my desk Monday, raising astonished eyebrows that a statewide political candidate would target a demographic represented in 51% of Ohio’s population about an issue that 57% of voters decided in a landslide less than a year ago. Nevertheless, here we were.

“Bernie Moreno says women are ‘single issue voters’ for abortion during Ohio town hall,” Colleen Marshall and Mark Feuerborn reported for WCMH:

The story made national headlines on Tuesday.

Moreno’s campaign spokesperson gave a statement to WCMH:

In the video, Moreno makes two assertions and two jokes.

Without any humor, Moreno asserts: “You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters.”

He then asserts, “Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women, a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else.”

Again, no humor here, in content or delivery. Just a second declarative statement – along with Moreno using the fronted adverbial “Sadly,” indicating he thinks this plight he’s envisioning about “a lot of suburban women” is sad.

The next part is where Moreno makes a joke. “OK. It’s a little crazy by the way, but — especially for women that are like past 50…” is his set-up.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you,’” is his punchline. Some people laugh.

Then he added his second joke: “Thank God my wife didn’t hear that one.” Some laugh at that too.

I find the humor a bit… strange. First, because it’s playing off of an idea that selfish myopia and a lack of empathy for others on huge societal questions is a desirable quality in a voter, and weirdly projecting that onto women over the age of 50.

But, more to the point, I find it strange because this issue this isn’t some hypothetical in Ohio, it’s the very recent past. And Moreno has yet to take a clear stand on whether he would protect the expressed will of Ohio voters after he opposed Ohio’s reproductive rights amendment last year.

Ohio’s 6-Week Abortion Ban

For eight weeks in the summer of 2022 after Roe v. Wade was overturned and Ohio’s six-week abortion ban was in place, we heard horror story after horror story from women and doctors.

We had the notorious case of the 10-year-old rape survivor who had to flee Ohio to seek care because Ohio’s extremist abortion ban didn’t have exceptions for rape or incest. At least two other pregnant minors who had been raped were denied abortions.

Doctors’ affidavits described more than two dozen other instances in which the abortion law put Ohio women under extreme duress. They included two women with cancer who couldn’t terminate their pregnancies and also couldn’t get cancer treatment while they were pregnant. Other women had partially delivered fetuses too undeveloped to survive only to see the delivery stall. In that condition, with the fetus partly out, they had to sign paperwork — and then wait for 24 hours, or for the fetus’s heart to stop.

Women suffering other complications such as a detached umbilical cord faced similar intrusions just after they were devastated to learn they would lose a child they dearly wanted. They, too, had to wait a day or for fetal demise. In one instance, that took 14 hours, a doctor said. Still other women — shattered to learn that the baby they’re carrying lacks vital organs necessary for survival — were told that in Ohio they had to carry that baby, possibly for months, only to see it be stillborn, or to watch it quickly die.

Many of us were absolutely horrified by these stories and don’t ever want our fellow citizens to suffer in such ways, no matter what our age, gender or demographic is.

The 2023 Ohio Abortion Rights Amendment

In November 2023, Ohioans went to the polls and passed a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights to put an end to these horror stories for good.

At least as early as August 2023 when it made the ballot, current Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown supported the reproductive rights amendment.

Moreno opposed the amendment. He also “donated six figures of his own money” to stop it, and he campaigned against the abortion rights amendment with false fear-mongering, about, of all things, child rapists.

Back in October 2021 when Moreno was first running for Senate, and in a primary against now-Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, Moreno told Brietbart, “I’m 100 percent pro-life with no exceptions.”

In fact, as the article states, back in 2021, before Roe was actually overturned, both Vance and Moreno were 100% pro-life with no exceptions.

The Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade was decided in June 2022.

That’s when Ohio learned what it was like to have a six-week abortion ban with no exceptions.

By October 2023, Moreno supported a federal abortion ban at 15 weeks with exceptions.

Ohio voters passed the reproductive rights amendment Moreno opposed in November 2023, which set fetal viability as the standard, which comes in a variable range around 25 to 27 weeks.

But even after voters passed the amendment, Moreno said during the January 2024 primary debate that he supports “a 15-week floor, where there’s common-sense restrictions after 15 weeks.”

In 2024, Moreno has been favoring euphemisms like “standard,” “restriction,” or “floor,” but he’s stayed steady on the 15 weeks.

This September, when asked if he would support a national ban, Moreno told NewsNation it’s “mostly” an issue for the states.

But then he added, “I do think at some point, aspirationally, we can get to the point where after 15 weeks there’s some common sense restrictions.”

Moreno is very committed to being noncommittal, but he seems pretty “aspirationally” thirsty for imposing something at 15 weeks, thus overturning the 2023 amendment.

Ohio voters of any age can’t afford to be so cavalier about a six-year term representing Ohio families in the United States Senate.

As we know too well, these laws have intimate, enormous impacts on our lives.

Moreno has massaged his position a lot in a very short period of time.

So if he has time to make jokes about voters right now, it’d be nice if Moreno would give Ohio voters a straight answer: Would he respect the will of Ohio voters and the Ohio Constitution? Or would he ever cast a vote – perhaps the deciding vote in the U.S. Senate — for a national abortion ban that overturns the will of Ohio voters?