OH lawmakers approve bill to ban abortion after 6 weeks

This time around, however, OH lawmakers folded the Heartbeat Bill – which would make abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat a felony – into a measure amending Ohio’s child abuse laws. Current Ohio law permits abortions up to about 20 weeks.

Katherine Franklin, a spokeswoman for Ohio Right to Life, said in an email her group remained neutral on the fetal heartbeat bill.

Ohio Senate President Keith Faber, a Republican, said the bill has a “better chance” of surviving a constitutional review in the courts, given the new Trump administration. Similar laws in Arkansas and North Dakota have failed when challenged in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The group is instead advocating for a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would instead ban abortion (with exceptions for the life of the mother) after about 20 weeks.

Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he was skeptical that the election of Donald Trump would drastically affect the heartbeat bill’s chances in court.

OH already has strict abortion laws. Faber told the Associated Press that the legislation came up again because of the expectation that Trump will fill available Supreme Court seats with justices who are more likely to uphold abortion restrictions. If/when it passes there it’d head to Governor Kasich to be signed into law.

The bill now goes to Gov. John Kasich, and if he signs it, OH would be the third state to pass such a law.

“I share the concerns of Right to Life about this bill and about potential litigation”, Kasich told reporters previous year.

“Anytime that you have a bill that deals with something in this realm, there’s always going to be someone who questions the constitutionality and there’s always going to be a potential for litigation and charge and we expect that so we will see what happens”. Kasich is well known for his anti-choice stance, having previously sought to strip funding from Planned Parenthood, but he has also expressed skepticism over former iterations of the heartbeat bill. Opponents noted that it does not include an exception for victims of rape or incest and it could burden taxpayers with costly litigation, WHIO reported.

“I voted against it for several reasons”, she said. “It’s clear, at least in the Ohio House, the Republican Majority is not there yet”.

He could also line-item veto the part of the bill banning abortion, The Dispatch reports, with Kathy DiCristofaro, the chair of the Ohio Democratic Women’s Caucus, describing the abortion ban as being “tacked on as a last-minute amendment” to a bill addressing child-abuse prevention.