“DeWine Doesn’t Care:” The Mess Surrounding Mike DeWine’s Campaign This Week
October 3, 2022
October 3, 2022
Good Monday afternoon, and welcome back to Mike Check, your weekly source of all the infighting, conspiracy spewing and corruption that’s making headlines in and around Mike DeWine’s campaign and statehouse, courtesy of the Ohio Democratic Party.
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DEWINE DOESN’T CARE. We’ll cut right to the chase this week, Mike DeWine simply doesn’t care about Ohio voters. With just under two months until Election Day, DeWine is trying to rewrite his entire record by making it seem like he cares about Ohio women and families. The truth? DeWine had four years to help Ohio families and invest in our children. Here are the results of his time in office:
- Health value – Ohio ranked 47th in the “health value dashboard”
- Life expectancy – Ohio has 13th lowest life expectancy of 75.3 years
- COVID-19 safety – Ohio ranks 47th in terms of handling the pandemic
- Public health preparedness – Ohio named one of the least-prepared states for a future public health emergency
- Child well-being – Ohio is 31st in the nation, with rates of anxiety, depression and chronic school absenteeism skyrocketing
- Education – Ohio saw a marked decline in public education following the COVID pandemic and changes to state testing requirements
- Black maternal mortality – Black women in Ohio are two and a half times more likely to have a pregnancy-related death than white women
DeWine’s sudden interest in children and families isn’t about making improvements on those disparities, it’s about distracting from his terrible record on abortion and women’s rights, which includes:
- DeWine has said he is ready to sign radical legislation into law after the Supreme Court ruled, including trigger ban legislation which would make no exception for rape or incest. He would also work to instate a previously signed six-week abortion ban.
- DeWine fought to defund Planned Parenthood and pushed for the closure of clinics around the state.
- DeWine appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the lower court ruling that kept Toledo’s last abortion clinic, Capital Care Network, open.
- In July 2015, DeWine launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood of Ohio to ensure they were complying with state law banning the sale of aborted fetuses, though DeWine’s office had heard no accusations of wrongdoing.
- DeWine voted against providing $10 million for education about emergency contraceptives; for making the morning-after pill available to survivors of sexual assault.
- DeWine voted against a Senate resolution expressing support for Roe v. Wade and saying that the decision should not be overturned.
- DeWine voted to prohibit military women and female military dependents from obtaining privately-funded abortions on overseas military bases.
- DeWine wrote a brief in the Hobby Lobby case that the owners of Hobby Lobby should not have to forfeit religious beliefs to provide birth control for employees.
- DeWine fought to strip the legal rights of abortion clinics to defend themselves.
- DeWine failed to condemn Rep. Jean Schmidt’s comments that pregnancy from rape is an “opportunity.”
- DeWine told an anti-choice group that he would “go as far as we can” to attack reproductive rights in Ohio following the decision to overturn Roe.
It’s clear that Mike DeWine has a lot to distract from. But Ohioans won’t be fooled. They know Mike DeWine is the most extreme anti-choice governor in the country and he’s no friend of Ohio women and families.
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