Lessons From Ohio’s Abortion Ballot Measure
Ohio voters delivered a decisive victory for abortion rights on Nov. 7, passing a ballot measure enshrining reproductive autonomy in the state’s constitution. Coming months after Ohioans defeated a ballot measure seen as a proxy for anti-abortion conservatives, the vote was a strong indicator that Americans, even in states led by Republicans, oppose abortion bans.
How did organizers approach Ohio’s abortion battle, and what does it mean for the 2024 elections? Susan Rinkunas, a freelance reporter covering abortion and politics, helped answer those questions in an interview with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali. Rinkunas worked as a senior reporter with Jezebel and has contributed to The Guardian, NBC News, Elle, Marie Claire, The Cut, and more.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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