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Ohio Right to Life director announces resignation as ‘circumstances’ hampered work

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The CEO of Ohio Right to Life, the state’s most influential anti-abortion organization, has announced he is stepping down after about two years in office.

Peter Range described the job as his dream job and described his departure as ‘walking away’. However, when contacted on Tuesday, he would not provide further details about the reason for his departure.

“Nevertheless, for those of you who know me well, you know that I do not take important decisions lightly. This decision was no different,” he wrote on X, in a post announcing his departure. “My desire is to serve the Lord with integrity, truth and passion. Ultimately, circumstances did not allow me to serve as I would have liked in this role, for the sake of the unborn.”

Ohio Right to Life has been influential in defending many of the dozens of restrictions on abortion rights that the Legislature has passed over the years. Since voters passed a state constitutional amendment last year guaranteeing abortion rights, many of those restrictions have been challenged in court.

READ MORE: 24-hour waiting periods, ‘Choose Life’ license plates and ‘fetal heartbeat’ law: Ohio has passed dozens of laws to restrict abortion

Range joined Ohio Right to Life in January 2022. He helped lead the organization with its president, Mike Gonidakis, during its unsuccessful fight against the abortion rights amendment. Range spoke out against the amendment and supported a separate issue in a special election that would have likely defeated the amendment had it passed.

Recently, Range spoke out against the recently adopted amendment to the Republican Party platform, which changed the official position of the Republican Party from a nationwide ban on abortion to a statement that abortion rights should be determined by the states themselves.

Read more: Republicans could remove a national ban from the party platform. Anti-abortion activists in Ohio are not happy

“If the Republican Party waters down the pro-life part of its platform, it will not only lose its moral authority, it will lose votes,” Range wrote.

Gonidakis, the other leader of Ohio Right to Life, has taken no such public position on the GOP’s revised platform. Gonidakis served as a delegate for Trump at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Gonidakis did not respond to a request for comment.

In his exit statement from X, Range continued to oppose abortion rights everywhere, saying he still wants to “abolish abortion, restore culture, and advance the Kingdom of God!”

Members of the anti-abortion community told Cleveland.com they either did not know or declined to say exactly why Range left the organization. Some noted that he lives in Toledo and commutes to Columbus for his job.

“This is a new era in the pro-life movement, and many people are doing some sincere soul searching in an effort to discover the most effective way to promote the sanctity of life,” state Rep. Gary Click, a Sandusky County Republican who also expressed disappointment that the GOP has backed away from a national abortion ban, said in a message. “Inevitably, many good people will come to different conclusions about how to achieve that goal.”

Range said he was inspired to join Ohio Right to Life by his father, who was twice paralyzed from the neck down.

“He taught me that life has value not based on what it can or cannot do, but rather that life has value for what it is: made in God’s image and likeness,” he wrote in a blog post on the Ohio Right to Life website. “Every life is precious, beautiful, and worth living, even in a completely paralyzed body.”

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Andrew Tobias contributed to this report.

Laura Hancock writes about state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.