Ohio Changes Everything In A Heartbeat

So, what's the top priority of Ohio Republicans now that they control the State House, Senate, and Governor's mansion?  Jobs?  Economic recovery?  Rebuilding the state's infrastructure?

Yeah, right.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio unveiled legislation Wednesday that would ban abortions of any fetus found to have a heartbeat, a move that could ban most abortions in the state.

Under legislation sponsored by State Representative Lynn Wachtmann, doctors would be forbidden from performing an abortion the moment a heartbeat is detected in the fetus. Fetuses generally develop a heartbeat within six weeks of conception, and in some pregnant women a heartbeat can be detected within 18 days.

The Youngstown Vindicator describes the bill as "the most restrictive abortion ban in the country" and potentially "a precedent for other states eyeing comparable restrictions."

Robyn Marty at Alternet reports that the "heartbeat bill" amounts to an almost total ban on abortion.

For most women, [the law] would provide a window of two weeks or less in order to learn she was pregnant, make her decision about the pregnancy, arrange for an appointment, gather money for an abortion, obtain the mandatory counseling and sit through the required 24 hour waiting period. For a woman with irregular menstrual cycles, by the time she realizes she is pregnant it likely would already be too late to do anything but continue the pregnancy.

Legal experts say the bill challenges Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the US. That ruling set the standard that a pregnant woman can abort a fetus until it is "viable," meaning capable of living outside the womb. But since a fetus develops a heartbeat long before it becomes "viable," the proposed Ohio law challenges that standard.

That prompted Case Western Law School professor Jessie Hill to call the bill "symbolic legislation ... that's clearly unconstitutional," reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The Plain Dealer noted that, with last fall's elections, all three branches of Ohio's state government are under Republican control, making the state a prime candidate for experimentation with a socially conservative agenda.

So Ohio's "heartbeat bill" will almost certainly pass in a heartbeat.  The question is how quickly will it get to the Supreme Court, and how many Republican controlled states will follow suit in filing copies of the law.  Georgia, Arizona and Texas plan to, certainly Florida will with its GOP supermajority.

The point of the law is to of course A) pass and B) go straight to SCOTUS to be used as the vehicle to strike down Roe v. Wade and end abortions in the country, period.  And should the heartbeat measure somehow fail, well, there's four other abortion restriction bills ready to go in the Ohio Statehouse this month.

The one thing I haven't seen any mention of is allowances for cases of rape or incest, but the law does make an exception for the health of the mother.  Nice to know that if your wife, sister, aunt, daughter, friend, granddaughter etc. gets raped in Ohio, the state plans to make her have that child.

I usually let Bon handle stories like this, but this one has national implications.  Pay attention, folks.

Things can change in a heartbeat.