The state’s largest anti-abortion organization plans to lobby state lawmakers to shorten the amount of time allowed before a pregnant woman can abort a fetus in Ohio.
Ohio Right to Life officials announced Tuesday that legislation banning abortions after 20 weeks, when they believes the fetus can feel pain, will be introduced soon in the GOP-led General Assembly.
“Our pain-capable legislation will alter the abortion debate in Ohio,” Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life, said in a news release. “An overwhelming majority of Americans, especially women, support protecting pre-born babies from scalpels and dismemberment. This is priority legislation for Ohio Right to Life and once again, the nation is watching.”
Ohio Right to Life President Michael Gonidakis declined in an interview to name the sponsors of the legislation.
Ohio would join 11 other states that ban abortion past 20 weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion legislation. A 2011 Ohio law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks or when the fetus has become viable, which physicians determine by tests when women seek abortions after 20 weeks.
Under the proposed legislation, physicians who perform abortions after 20 weeks, except for instances when the mother’s life is at risk, could face felony charges and lose their medical licenses.
Gonidakis said abortions after 20 weeks have declined 62 percent since Ohio passed its late-term abortion law in 2011. He said the new legislation is intended to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in which the high court defined viability as being able to live outside the mother’s womb, typically between 24 and 28 weeks.
Kellie Copeland, executive director of abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said that window is often when physicians conduct tests that can discover serious complications.
“It will force more women who need abortion care to leave the state, to leave the care of the doctors they have here in Ohio, and to work with a doctor in another state if they can get there — if their health situation and insurance allows that,” Copeland said. “And to families that have been through this, it’s unthinkable that politicians would involve themselves in a deeply personal, medical decision.”
Click here to read more of this story.
About Marion Online News
