Disinformation campaign against the Constitutional Congress of the Republic of Ingushetia

The “no” campaign itself began with the widespread claim that a constitutional convention would jeopardize women’s reproductive rights. When the constitutional convention issue was last on the ballot in 2014, as it does every 10 years, the No campaign sent a direct mailer to registered Rhode Island voters making the argument just days before the election. This argument has subsequently been widely ridiculed as Rhode Islanders support women’s reproductive rights, including abortion.

But what if voters can be tricked into voting against their own fundamental interests? This is essentially what the current “no” campaign claims happened in 1986.

That same year, an amendment approved by voters included the following clause, which, taken out of context, appears to limit women’s reproductive rights: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to grant or enforce any rights relating to abortion or its financing.”

What makes this argument so interesting is that the ACLU of Rhode Island, a leader of the “no” coalitions in 2014 and 2024, has refuted this claim in three legal briefs filed between 2019 and 2021 against Catholics for Life. , an anti-abortion group that filed a lawsuit in 2019 that made essentially the same argument that the No coalition is now making. This lawsuit unsuccessfully attempted to block the Reproductive Privacy Act passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly on the grounds that a 1986 amendment made the law unconstitutional.

Like the No coalition, Catholics for Life argued that the clause limits women’s reproductive rights.

The amendment included the following clause to explain its voter support: “No otherwise qualified person shall be subjected to discrimination by the State solely on account of race, sex, or disability.”

Anti-abortion advocates among the convention delegates worried that a future court might interpret these vaguely defined rights as affirming the right to an abortion. So they ended the amendment with a clause that the new rights should not be construed in that way. As the ACLU successfully argued in its reports, the General Assembly had the power to expand women’s reproductive rights, and the courts could protect those rights based on any constitutional provision except this new one.

In contrast, the anti-abortion group interpreted the provision as preventing the General Assembly from proposing any legislation to expand women’s reproductive rights without first amending the constitution to allow it to do so. To support his argument, he noted that the “No” coalition made such a statement during its campaign against the convention in 2004. In response, the ACLU said the No coalition’s 2004 statements to the contrary were in the context of propaganda. and should not have “independent weight” in court.

I agree with the ACLU’s legal brief in this case, which criticizes the anti-abortion group’s argument that this clause prevents the General Assembly from protecting and advancing women’s reproductive rights.

I also agree with the review’s argument that the amendment’s history shows that the convention was not intended to surreptitiously restrict women’s reproductive rights. Moreover, it was not misleading if the item was not described in the voting record. That is, unlike the coalition’s current implicit “no” assumption in its propaganda statements, there was no conspiracy to hide the impact of this clause from convention delegates and the public.

The No coalition will undoubtedly find reasons to challenge this analysis. I would suggest that one of the ACLU’s legal briefs provides the best succinct rebuttal to such claims: “(The 1986 Choice Clause) was not intended or intended to drastically restrict or interfere with the exercise of reproductive rights.”

The No Coalition pushes such bogus arguments to the public because the real reason its supporters oppose an independently elected convention—to maintain their power over the legislature—cannot be voiced publicly.

J. H. Snyder – magazine editor Rhode Island State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse.