Ban on abortions after 1st heartbeat sent to Ohio governor
COLUMBUS, Ohio • No topic seemed off limits, including tales of back alleys and coat hangers, as abortion-rights supporters in Ohio fought perhaps the last battle over a twice-vetoed heartbeat abortion ban, which Gov. Mike DeWine has said he will sign.
After nearly 10 years of fighting, Democrats let loose during run-up to final House and Senate approval Wednesday with lessons from slavery, predictions of economic harm, references to the book of Genesis, and testimonials about their own rapes. Faith groups brandished banners and made pleas for religious tolerance. An advocate for reproductive rights threatened Republicans with the loss of young voters’ support in 2020.
Opponents vowed to sue.
Ohio’s closely divided politics have slowed the progress of the so-called heartbeat bill as it has caught momentum elsewhere , forcing years of debate in the state where the movement originated.
Five other states have now passed similar bans, two of which have been blocked by the courts. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who took office in January, has said he will sign the bill, after former GOP Gov. John Kasich vetoed it twice.
State Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan, a Democrat from a storied Youngstown political family, shed tears during the debate, exasperated at a bill she said would harm Ohio and its future.
“I’m concerned that we will have companies that will choose not to locate here due to our oppressive laws. I’m concerned that doctors will leave the state of Ohio,” she said.
“I’m concerned that our kids are going to leave, that we’re going to lose a large amount of young people who don’t want to live in an oppressive atmosphere.”
Opponents’ protests did nothing to budge a largely closed-mouthed GOP majority on the committee. They appeared confident that prohibiting pregnancy termination once a fetal heartbeat is detected is the best thing for the unborn, for women and for the state. Republicans dominated an 11-7 party-line vote that sent the bill to the full House, where it’s scheduled for a vote Wednesday.
State Rep. Candice Keller, a Middletown Republican, called the legislation “the most compassionate bill we’ve ever passed.”
Keller rejected suggestions that everyone knows someone who has had, or will need, an abortion; that women will continue to have abortions, only unsafely; even that reproductive rights are about women rather than the men who impregnate them and the male doctors who abort those pregnancies.
“If we are really about empowering the women of Ohio and empowering the women of this country, we will begin to tell the truth about the abortion industry and the enormous amount of profit that is made on the backs of women,” she said.
Ohio Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan wipes tears from her face during a hearing to propose amendments to the “Heartbeat Bill,” which was later voted to pass through the committee and to the House floor at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday.