Ohio is crucial to America’s future. Ohioans put George W. Bush over the top in `04. And it was when he lost Ohio that John McCain’s hopes for a come-from-behind victory went up in smoke. No Republican has ever been elected President without winning the Buckeye State.

So when Ohio talks, professional pols should listen. And Ohioans are speaking up most strongly against ObamaCare abortions. The latest poll shows more than two out of three Ohioans oppose taxpayer-funded abortions. Most interesting, the poll shows that fully half (50.7% to 31.6%) of President Obama’s voters in Ohio oppose being forced to pay for the killing of the unborn. There’s no gender gap in these figures, either. Ohio women oppose it by a powerful 66.4% to 17.1%; Ohio’s men oppose this cruel and unjust practice by 68.9% to 21.9%).

Opposition to taxpayer-funded abortion spans the entire state with the northwest recording an astounding 86.3% against. Even in northeast Ohio, 55.1% oppose. In no part of the state does this idea come close to commanding majority support.

Because Ohioans are so strong in their pro-life convictions, Democrats as well as Republicans stand up for life in Congress. Marcy Kaptur (D-9) and Steven Driehaus (D-1) have both told Speaker Pelosi they will not go along with a government takeover of health care if it involves federal funding for abortion. Regrettably, however, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) voted against an amendment in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee that would have spared Ohioans from being morally implicated in the taking of innocent human lives.

President Obama told Pope Benedict XVI that he wants to “reduce” abortions in America. But every study—including those by the pro-abortion groups themselves—shows convincingly that federal funding for abortion greatly increases the numbers of lives taken. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) estimates that as many as 300,000 abortions a year can result from federal funding. AGI is a spinoff of Planned Parenthood, which has annually increased the number of unborn children killed in its facilities over the past quarter century. Today, fully 350,000 abortions annually are done by these traffickers in human misery.

President Obama must know these figures too. That is why his pledge to reduce abortions does not pass the straight face test. He may say he wants to reduce abortions, but making them free is hardly a policy calculated to achieve that result. And sluicing vast sums of public monies to Planned Parenthood—the largest purveyor of abortion in the world—is a curious way to reduce the deadly annual toll. Worldwide, abortions annually account for as many as 50 million deaths.

There is a great deal of confusion about Obama’s plan to take over health care. One thing is indisputable: unless abortion is explicitly ruled out, it’s ruled in. Six times in the HELP committee, minority members tried to get it ruled out. And six times they were defeated.
So now it’s in there.

That’s not the only reason to oppose ObamaCare. But it is certainly a powerful one.
Just knowing that this whole new government effort will be superintended by Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius—the most pro-abortion governor in U.S. history—should give us all pause.

President Obama has spoken eloquently of the need for civility and respect in the debate about abortion. We also need honesty. The strongest advocates of liberalized abortion see it as a “benefit.” They think they are helping the poor by providing this “service” to them.
Let them make their case to the American people. Don’t hide behind phrases designed to cloak what is being done. “Full reproductive services” and “community health services to women” are well-known catch-phrases designed to cover up the hard reality of abortion.

We have had thirty-three years of experience with these well-known dodges. So we keep coming back to the central truth in this debate: Americans do not want to be forced to pay for the killing of unborn children. And Ohioans are very American.