Ohio Republicans introduce bill to effectively ban all abortions following Texas Heartbeat Act by Ashley Sadler for Life Site News
The Ohio bill would ban abortion at any stage of pregnancy and employ a similar enforcement mechanism as the one used under the Texas Heartbeat Act.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) — As the Supreme Court hears challenges to Texas’ “Heartbeat Act” which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, Ohio Republicans have introduced a bill which goes a step farther than the Texas law, which appears to outlaw almost all abortions regardless of cardiac activity or gestation time.
On Tuesday GOP lawmakers in Ohio introduced House Bill 480, which defines an “unborn child” as an individual human being “from fertilization until live birth.” The legislation would prohibit abortion by making it a crime for any person in the state to administer, procure, or sell “any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the purpose to terminate the pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the termination by any of those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn child.”
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“Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no person shall purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion,” the bill states.
The legislation states that exceptions to Ohio’s proposed abortion ban would be granted only to those whose assistance in an abortion was “designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother and the physician made reasonable medical efforts under the circumstances to preserve both the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child in a manner consistent with conventional medical practice.’” It is unclear whether such an exception would exclude the delivery of pre-viable babies.
Supported by over half of Ohio’s House Republicans, HB 480 is sponsored by Republican State Representatives Jena Powell and Thomas Hall as well as 33 Republican co-sponsors.
“The sanctity of human life, born and preborn, must be preserved in Ohio,” said Rep. Powell in a statement, adding that the bill, also known as the 2363 Act (an estimated 2,363 children are killed in America through abortion every day), is “about protecting our fundamental, constitutional right to be born and live. Abortion kills children, scars families, and harms women. We can and must do better.”
On the chamber floor Powell affirmed that HB 480 is intentionally similar to the Texas pro-life law, noting that the Ohio bill “utilizes the enforcement mechanism from the successful Texas Heartbeat Act” which empowers private citizens to file civil lawsuits seeking $10,000 or more against anyone assisting in the procurement of an abortion except the pregnant mother.
