CLEVELAND, Ohio - Former President Barack Obama (pictured), the nation's first Black president and a former U.S. senator,  urged  Ohioans on social media late Thursday afternoon to vote for Issue 1, the proposed abortion rights constitutional amendment on the Nov 7 ballot that would legalize abortion in Ohio, a pivotal state for presidential elections that Obama won in 2008 and again for reelection in 2012

Early voting is currently underway.

“Ohio, there’s an important election happening right now,” the former Democratic president  said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “If you want to protect abortion rights by making them part of your state Constitution, vote yes on Issue 1.”

Women's March Cleveland, a greater Cleveland grassroots activist group for women founded in 2017, was elated, saying Obama, a former constitutional lawyer, has been a longtime advocate for women's rights and Civil Rights.

" We thank former president Barack Obama for supporting issue 1 in Ohio as we prepare for victory on Nov 7 when Ohioans vote on whether to enshrine the legal right to abortion into the Ohio constitution,"said longtime Cleveland activist and organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, head organizer for Women's March Cleveland and a long time local Black journalist who interviewed Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president in Cleveland in 2008, a cover story for the Call and Post, Ohio's most prominent Black print newspaper.

Women's March Cleveland is a grassroots women's rights group comprised primarily of greater Cleveland activist women and first established in 2017 when thousands of women in Cleveland and millions as a whole in sister cities nationwide marched in the streets in their respective cities following then president Donald Trump's inauguration, the largest single day march in American history.

The group has over 4,800 members, organizers said. The issues the group fights for or against, practically all of them public policy matters impacting women, also include poverty, excessive force, educational equity for poor and Black children, and the nation's intrinsically racist and sexist legal system.

But reproductive rights have also become a central premise of the organization, along with rape, murder and other heinous violence against women in the largely Black major American city of Cleveland, a disproportionate number of the victims Black, and poor.

If Ohio voters approve issue 1 at the ballot box early next month as polls predict, it would negate a six week abortion ban dubbed "The Heartbeat Bill," a state law that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court, on June 24, 2022, overturned Roe v Wade and relegated the authority to restrict or outright outlaw abortion aside from applicable federal law to the respective state legislatures nationwide. And those state legislatures are predominantly Republican, including in Ohio.

The  Heartbeat Bill, however, is temporarily on hold per the ruling of a Hamilton County judge and as lawsuits over the controversial measure make their way through the courts.

• Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interviewCLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.