Ohio: ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Ban Now Law.


USA-Pr0-Life and Pro-Choice advocates protest at the Supreme Court in Washington DC in anticipation of the Supreme Court ‘s ruling on free access to abortion. CREDIT: AP/Patsy Lynch.

USA-Pr0-Life and Pro-Choice advocates protest at the Supreme Court in Washington DC in anticipation of the Supreme Court ‘s ruling on free access to abortion. CREDIT: AP/Patsy Lynch.

Ohio lawmakers approved a bill that would ban abortions six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy on Tuesday, making it the most extreme abortion ban in the country. Six weeks is the point at which a fetal heartbeat can be detected. By calling this legislation a “heartbeat bill” anti-abortion lawmakers can take the focus away from the woman carrying the pregnancy and toward the fetus.

Legislators sneaked the anti-abortion language into a Senate bill addressing child abuse and neglect laws at the last minute on Monday. The House voted to approve the bill Tuesday night.

Anti-abortion group Ohio Right to Life previously said the bill would not stand up to a constitutional challenge. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked similar laws in North Dakota and Arkansas that criminalized abortion after six weeks and 12 weeks respectively, and the Ohio Senate previously didn’t act on the bill. But with a Donald Trump administration and a new Supreme Court justice in the near future, anti-abortion lawmakers like their chances, Cleveland.com reported.

“A new president, new Supreme Court appointees change the dynamic, and there was consensus in our caucus to move forward,” Republican Senate President Keith Faber said during the lame duck session, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “I think it has a better chance than it did before.”

I have never been happier to be well beyond any possibility of pregnancy, a state I’ve been in for well over a quarter century now. I truly fear for all those who do have to live with the possibility of pregnancy, and the obstacle course they are faced with if they decide on a termination. This is bad news, because if this doesn’t get overturned as the other cases have been, you can bet this legislation will be introduced once again, and not just in the states where it was previously tried.

Full story at Think Progress.

Comments

  1. says

    Most people figure out they are pregnant around 8 weeks, which is why this evil legislation is so damn popular. To determine a pregnancy prior to six weeks, you’d have to be testing yourself damn near constantly, and then you’re dependent on whether or not the test is valid.

    When I was pregnant, I got my period while pregnant, it fucked up the tests more than once, and I was downright lucky I managed to get in for a termination at 8 weeks. There’s no way in hell I could have made that determination before or by six weeks.

  2. says

    Giliell:

    That picture speaks volumes…

    Oh yes it does. Smug, check. Self righteous, check. White, check. Male, check. Christian, check. But there’s no such thing as patriarchy, no.

  3. Ice Swimmer says

    I deeply despise that dude’s smug expression. He seems to be for some kind of freedom, but seems unwilling to let others have some significant freedoms.

  4. says

    I always noticed early, but I also wanted to be pregnant. Yeah, I once had a friend who went to her OB/Gyn because she was feeling “weird” and it was because she was three months along. She was floored because she still had “her period”. Many women still have some kind of bleeding and I can imagine how easy it is to miss something if they are irregular anyway and you’re not puking like hell.

  5. blf says

    The mildly deranged penguin points out it’s much much easier to have some stoooopid male sit on the egg all though the freezing cold winner whilst you vacation in the tropics. Spending the winter sitting on an egg dressed penguin-style — only in a tuxedo — seems like an attractive option for the smenugins in the picture, except they are toxic and would pollute the land.

  6. embraceyourinnercrone says

    I guess my second pregnancy loss where the fetus died but did not miscarry they would have made me just carry the dead fetus until it was expelled…or I died of sepsis. And if it was expelled they would have made me pay for a cremation. (In reality I got a D and C at a nice Navy hospital, yay government healthcare.)
    And this is why I hate these Republican, self righteous assholes

  7. rq says

    Many women still have some kind of bleeding and I can imagine how easy it is to miss something if they are irregular anyway and you’re not puking like hell.

    Oh, yes! See Eldest. Plus I was in a strange country with a winter darker than I was used to, so odd feelings and irregular bleeding got writ off due to stress and acclimatization, and it wasn’t exactly something I was expecting to happen.

    I was also going to comment on the photo, it is just so illustrative.

  8. johnson catman says

    Assholes. If they really wanted to prevent abortions, they would advocate for comprehensive sex ed for all students and provide free contraception on demand. Instead, they are really only concerned with controlling women.

  9. says

    embraceyourinnercrone

    guess my second pregnancy loss where the fetus died but did not miscarry they would have made me just carry the dead fetus until it was expelled…or I died of sepsis.

    Same story here. And not even shitty abortion access Germany made a fuss about it. I got some comforting words and a referral from my OB/Gyn and a D&C at the hospital the same day.
    It’S funny how nobody thinks I was a mother of three because there had once been an embryo with a heartbeat which then just stopped.

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