How did we get here? This is the question looming large in the mind of pro-lifers right now.

How did we get to a place where Planned Parenthood, with the Ohio Issue 1 ballot initiative, was able to make abortion a constitutional right in a conservative-leaning midwestern state?

We expect something like this to happen in places such as California, New York, and by some stretch even Michigan, which approved a similar constitutional amendment last year. But how did the pro-life movement lose to Planned Parenthood on its home turf in deeply pro-life Ohio?

Though these questions may seem complicated from a distance, the confusion is immediately cleared when you talk to the average Ohio voter, which I did last week as I campaigned against Issue 1 in my capacity as assistant director of Operation Save America.

When I arrived in Ohio from my home state of neighboring Indiana, I noticed the vast difference in demeanor between pro-abortion voters and pro-life voters. The pro-abortion voters were clear, dogmatic, and unwavering about their goals. They wanted to establish a constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion: full stop, no exception, no apology. They had been well catechized with their talking points and they were quite prepared to defend their position.

On the other hand, the pro-life voters were hesitant. They wanted to affirm that abortion was wrong, but then they also wanted to be very careful not to come off as too radically pro-life.

Many of the pro-lifers I spoke to seemed apologetic about their position. One man I met in a Walmart parking lot in Eaton, Ohio, serves as a perfect example: I greeted him, handed him a flyer, and started to discuss Issue 1 with him. He very kindly informed me that he was indeed pro-life, that he had always voted pro-life, and that he believed life begins at conception.

But then, the discussion shifted in an unexpected direction. He told me that while he had always voted pro-life in the past, he was reconsidering his decision because he was concerned that perhaps the pro-life movement had gone too far. The conversation became even more strange when he informed me that some of the material from Protect Women Ohio, the coalition of pro-life establishment groups working to defeat Issue 1, had persuaded him to reconsider.

The pro-life voters were hesitant. They wanted to affirm that abortion was wrong, but they also wanted to be careful not to come off as too radically pro-life.

He said the pro-life coalition seemed to indicate that we should oppose abortion because it is bad for women. But then, he reasoned, if the issue is the woman and not the baby, then who are we to tell women that abortion is bad for them? I spent a few minutes trying to work through the issue with him and then he drove away, still confused and unsure how he would vote.

I was not the only one on our team who had this kind of discussion. Operation Save America communications director Marek Kizer, who was in Ohio talking to voters in the days leading up to the election, experienced similar results. He reported to me that the average conservative voter was left confused by the pro-life coalition’s watered-down messaging, which focused on tertiary aspects less relevant to the amendment itself. This left many voters who would normally be zealous to vote on the life issue not even understanding the purpose of the amendment.

In other words, attempts to make the issue about parental rights, protecting women, or painful late-term abortion that “just goes too far” all served to muddy the waters for voters.

The bottom line is that the unwillingness of pro-life establishment leaders in Ohio to clearly communicate that Issue 1 was at its very core about the murder of innocent babies led to great confusion among normally reliable pro-life voters.

This lack of clarity also led to a lack of energy. Operation Save American national director Jason Storms, who was also in Ohio ahead of the election, told me that the atmosphere was not as intense as he would have expected. He added that people were tired of the barrage of ads and likewise found that pro-life people were confused by the messaging from both sides. He was disappointed that the leaders of the pro-life coalition did not present the humanity and worth of the preborn children clearly in their messaging.

The average conservative voter was left confused by the pro-life coalition’s watered-down messaging, which focused on tertiary aspects less relevant to the amendment itself.

Conservative voters were not clear on what they were standing for or against. They therefore lacked the conviction that comes with moral clarity. It is this muddying of the waters through indecisive and unclear messaging that ultimately led to Issue 1 passing in Ohio.

It is time for the leaders of the pro-life establishment to stop blaming everything else and take responsibility for their failed strategy. Sadly, this is not the first time the tactic of shifting away from the humanity of the preborn child has been a losing strategy for the pro-life movement.

The truth is that the pro-life establishment has been failing for a long time now. It is simply less obvious during normal elections because they are propped up by other conservative movements like right to work groups, Second Amendment groups, medical freedom groups, and parental rights groups, who all are willing to stand their ground with moral clarity on their issues.

But when the pro-life establishment is forced to fight on its own, as was the case in Ohio, it almost always loses. The time has come for leaders of the pro-life movement to take responsibility: if they cannot stand firmly on the principles we affirm as pro-life people, that human beings are created in the image of God and that they must be protected from fertilization until natural death, then it is time for them to step aside and for a new class of leader arise.

The reality is that abortion is the murder of an innocent human being. It should be recognized as murder, without exception or compromise. Any pro-life leader who is not willing to affirm these truths openly and publicly, and to make these truths the central point of their messaging, needs to resign immediately and find something else to do with their life.