And The Crap Came Back

Ohio Republicans aren't giving up on effectively criminalizing abortions, as this marks the third year out of four they've introduced their ridiculous "heartbeat" bill.

Ohio state Sen. Kris Jordan (R-Ostrander) introduced a bill Thursday that would ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

SB 297 allows abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected only to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman. It contains no exceptions for rape or incest, and would make performing an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected a fifth-degree felony. The bill also would create a joint legislative committee to promote adoption, and allow a woman who has had an abortion to file a civil suit against the physician for the “wrongful death of her unborn child.”

So not only would it become a felony to perform a medical abortion after just the first six weeks (before many women know they are even pregnant) but women could then apparently retroactively sue abortion providers right out of business, so it's not like any providers would be left anyway.

Another heartbeat ban passed the state house in 2011 but failed to pass the senate, and it has not received hearings or a vote since being reintroduced in the house in 2013. The recent senate reintroduction came the day before a federal court permanently struck down another extreme abortion ban in Arkansas, which would have banned the procedure after 12 weeks and defined viability as beginning with a fetal heartbeat. Attorneys who sued to block that law successfully argued that it unconstitutionally restricted abortion before a fetus is viable.

Which is great, but Ohio's existing abortion laws are very close to turning Cincinnati into the largest metro area in the US without any abortion providers whatsoever.

As more abortion clinics close in Ohio, few hospitals are willing to perform the procedure under any circumstance.

In 2012, fewer than 1 percent of the 25,000 abortions performed in Ohio occurred at a hospital.

State law prohibits public hospitals from performing abortions or entering into transfer agreements for care after one is performed. Even most private hospitals have bans on elective abortions or strict guidelines for when the procedure can be performed.

Some hospitals allow for abortions deemed to be medically necessary. Increasingly, though, that means only in the most dire circumstances, as when the life of an expectant mother is threatened.

Few hospitals in Southwest Ohio will perform an abortion due to a genetic anomaly of a fetus, said Dr. Roslyn Kade, medical director at Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio.

“The hospitals used to induce all of those patients. That is something that has changed very recently,” she said. “Even if the pregnancy is not viable, these women have to go to (full) term or get referred, because they likely won’t terminate the pregnancy in the hospital now.”

Cincinnati could be without any abortion providers by the end of this year.  That's shocking.  The GOP only wants to speed that up.