State Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) launched a public attack on the anti-abortion group that endorsed his Republican primary challenger — then watched his own conservative base turn against him in the comments.
In a Facebook post Friday, Click called End Abortion Ohio “clowns” and said he would refuse the organization’s endorsement “under any condition,” after the group endorsed Eric Watson in the May 5 Republican primary for Ohio’s 88th House District.
“This is NOT a prolife organization,” Click wrote. “They are antiabortion without being prolife. If you are placing a young woman on death row, you are not prolife.”
Click, who recently stepped down as pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple and now holds the honorary title of pastor emeritus, invoked Scripture to justify his position: “Read John 8, ‘Neither don’t condemn thee. Go and sin no more.’ — Jesus.”
He added: “When Jesus said, ‘He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone,’ even the Pharisees had enough sense to walk away. This crowd screams, ‘Give me the biggest rock you got!’”
End Abortion Ohio fires back
The group responded directly beneath Click’s post, rejecting his characterization and citing a different biblical framework for the role of elected officials.
“Sir, we agree that Jesus offers hope and healing to the broken,” the organization wrote. “But the role of the Civil Magistrate, which is you (Romans 13), is to do partiality-free justice.”
End Abortion Ohio accused Click of misusing the passage from John 8, writing: “Does John 8 mean we should abolish the law against murder entirely? Of course not, and what ridiculous exegesis from you as a former pastor.”
The group also pointed to the endorsement of its position by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention and said it was asking Click to “pick up the Pen of Justice and protect the preborn with the same laws that protect you and me.”
End Abortion Ohio endorsed Watson after he scored 100% on the group’s 2026 candidate survey and completed multiple in-person interviews. Click declined to participate in the survey. The group published a side-by-side graphic contrasting Watson’s responses with Click’s refusal, under the heading “Who Stands Against Murder?”
The graphic included a quote attributed to Click: “They begged me to take their survey, I declined. I said no, I don’t get bullied by people on the Right.”
Click’s own supporters turn on him
The sharpest blows came not from outside critics but from commenters who identified themselves as Click’s own allies.
Chris Shay, a Clyde city councilman who told Click “I consider us brothers in Christ,” wrote that he “must respectfully disagree” with the incumbent’s position.
“You cannot be a true advocate for the unborn if you believe in being pro-life, ‘with exceptions,’” Shay wrote. “There are no exceptions in the willful and intentional sacrifice, with malice and forethought, of human beings. Otherwise you are picking and choosing which lives are more valuable than others.”
Click responded to Shay directly, asking: “I find it hard to believe that you would put a woman on death row after being bullied by her boyfriend, husband or brothers to make a bad choice. Would you really revictimize her?”
Jonah Kearns called that framing “a gross misrepresentation of the abolitionist stance,” writing that a trial would not find such a woman deserving of death row “and you know that.”
Ben Zeisloft, who identified himself as aligned with the abolitionist movement, told Click the exchange “could have been avoided simply by supporting the bill to abolish abortion in Ohio” and pledged to personally knock doors in District 88 for Watson’s campaign.
Click replied: “There is nothing to avoid. Good luck. Most Christians prefer to follow the example of Christ. I do.”
Zeisloft responded with a theological rebuke, writing that “Christ is the one who established civil government and commands civil officials like you to punish evil” and calling Click’s refusal to support the legislation “a dereliction of duty before Christ.”
Bryan Fox wrote that Click was “trying to do the job of the judiciary when he’s a legislator,” accusing him of confusing his role. “Why do we have to teach you how to do your job?” Fox wrote.
Lizzie Marbach called Click’s position “utterly despicable for an elected official” and accused him of “robbing women of the gospel by telling them they are victims.”
The bill at the center of the fight
The legislation End Abortion Ohio wants Click to champion is House Bill 370, the Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act. Introduced in June 2025 by Reps. Levi Dean (R-Xenia) and Johnathan Newman (R-Troy), the bill would extend legal personhood to fetuses from the moment of fertilization and apply existing criminal and civil laws to protect what it terms “preborn persons” equally with born persons. It was referred to the House Judiciary Committee in September 2025 and has not advanced. Click is not a sponsor or co-sponsor.
Ohio voters approved Issue 1 in November 2023 with 57% of the vote, enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.
Click’s own personhood bill
Click’s attack on the group raises questions about his own legislative record on the issue.
In July 2022, Click himself introduced House Bill 704, “The Personhood Act,” which would have recognized the personhood and constitutional rights of “all unborn human individuals from the moment of conception.” The bill had 7 Republican co-sponsors.
In a press release at the time, Click said: “For nearly fifty years one class of people has erroneously been denied their constitutional rights: the unborn.” He added: “A person is a person from the moment a new human being is created.”
HB 704 never advanced beyond a committee referral. The current bill Click is now refusing to support — HB 370 — pursues a similar legal framework: extending personhood protections to the unborn from the point of conception.
Click’s refusal to participate in End Abortion Ohio’s survey also extends a pattern. He declined Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey in 2020, 2022, and 2024, and did not attend the League of Women Voters’ District 88 candidates night earlier this week, where Watson and Democratic candidate Aaron Jones both participated.
The Republican primary in Ohio’s 88th House District is scheduled for May 5.
