Moms with far-apart views vie in House race

The Ohio House District 27 race pits two suburban moms who are also nurses. That’s about all they have in common.

The newly redrawn eastern Hamilton County district includes Anderson and Symmes townships, Indian Hill, Terrace Park, Newtown, part of Loveland and several Cincinnati neighborhoods. It offersatestofhowsuburbanmotherswho could swing this and other Ohio races feel about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this summer to overturn the fivedecade-old Roe v. Wade ruling that protected women’s ability to get an abortion.

Republican Jenn Giroux is a longtime pro-life activist who is against exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest.

“A child should not be punished (aborted) for the crimes of the father,” Giroux says on her campaign web site. Abortion is always wrong.”

She has long spoken out on Catholic issues, and she and her husband run the

Catholic Shop in Madeira. The Nov. 8 election nears as Roman Catholic churches are marking Respect Life Month in October with such anti-abortion messages as tiny crosses on their lawns representing aborted fetuses.

Ohio is among states that saw a postSupreme Court ruling surge in registration of female voters, thought to be largely because of their opposition to outlawing abortion.

“I strongly believe that any health care decision should be left to the patients and their health care providers … including access to abortion,” Democratic nominee Rachel Baker said in a recent interview. “The government shouldn’t be involved at all.”

The candidates also clash in the debateoverwhat’sbeingtaughtinschools, an issue that’s roiled the Forest Hills School District that is within House 27 after the school board this year passed a sweeping resolution aimed against critical race theory (which educators say isn’t part of K-12 curriculum), gender identity, ethnicity, sex education, socioeconomic class and more.

Giroux agrees with such efforts, blasting educators who “mistakenly believe that it is their job to indoctrinate our children.”

Baker, who lives in the Forest Hills district with her three children, said such interference with professional educators “scares me a lot.” She calls it part of “a national movement to bring fear and distrust to public education and discrediting teachers.”

Giroux, married mother of nine children, has said that artificial insemination should be outlawed. And that couples who can have children naturally should have a lot of them. For one reason, she explained in a Facebook post, all those children can provide financial support to their parents after they’ve retired.

Giroux’s Facebook page offers suggestions that liberals have been waging a violent uprising against this country and working treasonously with foreign governments.

Baker has attracted support from someRepublicansinthedistrict,including former Hamilton County commissioner and Cincinnati council member Phil Heimlich.

“It’s an easy decision,”said Heimlich, who puts Giroux in the extreme GOP wing of “conspiracy-spreaders” such as U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lau- ren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.

Heimlich praises Baker for focusing on the “bread-and-butter issues facing our communities, such as cost of living, safe streets and quality schools” while upholding the rule of law.

Giroux frequently calls out “RINOS” (Republicans in Name Only) that in her mind include Republicans Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. Rob Portman. She’s called McConnell and Portman “traitors” and DeWine a “tyrant.”

She seems to have particular hostility for Portman, a resident of the district who has served in the U.S. House, held multiple White House positions under two presidents, and is retiring at the end of his second Senate term. He’ll leave Washington in January with accolades from both sides of the aisle for his long, scandal-free career.

Giroux on Facebook has called him “a political whore and Deep State sellout.”

Seriously?

Given that Portman is Hamilton County’s most prominent officeholder, it seems the county’s Republican Party leadership should consider aborting its support of Giroux’s candidacy.

Dan Sewell writes a Sunday politics for The Enquirer. He can be reached at his personal email, dsewellrojos@ gmail.com