The wording of a proposed constitutional amendment on Ohio’s fall ballot to ensure abortion rights seems straightforward: It would enshrine the right “to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”

Yet as the campaigning for and against the nation’s latest tug-of-war over abortion begins in earnest this weekend, voters are getting a different message from the measure’s opponents. They are characterizing it as threatening a wide range of parental rights.

“As parents, it’s our worst nightmare,” one particularly ominous online ad funded by Protect Women Ohio, the opposition campaign, says of November’s Issue 1. That ad suggests the amendment would let minors end pregnancies without parental permission, calling it “a potential reality so grim it’s hard to even imagine.” Another suggests parents would have no say in minors’ ”sex change surgery.”

It’s no surprise that anti-abortion groups opposed to the amendment are promoting that message. They are trying to flip the script in how they talk to voters after a string of losses in statewide ballot fights since the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nationwide right to abortion last year.

Measures protecting access to abortion have succeeded in Democratic- and Republican-leaning states, including California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.

Data collected last year by AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the electorate, showed that 59% of Ohio voters believe abortion should generally be legal. Just last month, Ohio voters soundly defeated a measure that GOP lawmakers placed on a special election ballot that would have raised the threshold to pass constitutional amendments to 60% — a proposal seen as a first step to defeating the abortion amendment.

Before what is expected to be the highest profile national issue in November’s elections, Ohio also is serving as a testing ground for political messaging headed into next year’s presidential race. Abortion rights groups are trying to qualify initiatives in more states in 2024, potentially including the perennial battleground of Arizona.

To try to reverse their string of losses, anti-abortion groups are using the Ohio campaign to test arguments over parental rights and gender-related health care as potentially a winning counterpunch.

“It’s clear that the misinformation about abortion is not winning,” said Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It didn’t win in Michigan. It didn’t win in Vermont. It didn’t win in Kansas. It didn’t win in Kentucky. So instead, we are seeing anti-abortion factions in search for that new, winning talking point.”

Legal experts disagree over what effect, if any, the Ohio amendment would have on parents’ ability to control their children’s access to abortion and gender-related health care, including surgery.