Losing It All In Cincy

While Mayor-elect John Cranley is busy railing against the streetcar, maybe he should be setting up city bus service to Columbus, Louisville, Lexington, or Indianapolis for women who need to get abortions, because Cincinnati is about to become the largest metro area in the country without an abortion provider.

Abortion restrictions tucked into Ohio's budget are threatening to close facilities around the state and leave 2.1 million people in the Cincinnati metropolitan area – Ohio's most populous – without an abortion clinic. 

If the Cincinnati-area clinics were to close, the region would become the largest metropolitan area in the country without an abortion clinic, according to a Cincinnati Enquirer analysis cross-referencing U.S. Census data and abortion providers. 

Ohio had 14 abortion clinics at the start of 2013 and could soon be down to seven. Three have closed so far this year – in Toledo, Cleveland and Akron – although those closures were mostly unrelated to the new state rules. Two other clinics, one in Toledo and one in Sharonville, are seeking reprieves from the Health Department's moves to revoke their licenses. And two more, in Cincinnati and Dayton, have asked the state to give them special permission to stay open.

And while everyone is telling us how awesome John Kasich is for being all MAVERICKY and bucking the tea party and expanding Medicaid, let's remember it's Kasich's tea party budget that is about to close basically all the abortion clinics in the state, and that was the point.

"The entire western part of the state is in danger of losing access to safe, legal abortion care. And it's because of politics," said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. 

Without abortion clinics in Cincinnati and perhaps Dayton, Southwest Ohioans, Northern Kentuckians and even some Hoosiers would face hours of driving, days off work and gallons of gas to get an abortion – especially because Ohio law requires an appointment at a clinic at least 24 hours before an abortion, unless the woman is endangered by the pregnancy.

 The goal here is to continue to punish women for being women.  That'll teach them to vote against Republicans, right boys?