Ohio's extreme anti-abortion measure and what it will do to Ohio women
In the heat of the Texas anti-abortion legislation, Ohio slipped through the media’s fingers Thursday when they passed a new bill that will effectively outlaw abortion as well as deny rape victims abortion rights.
The new budget bill recently passed in Ohio added unprecedented new restrictions on abortions. Ohio state law OAC 3701-83-19 (E) currently requires that “Ambulatory Surgical Facilities” maintain a transfer agreement with a hospital as part of their licensing requirements. The new budget bill, starting at line 10257, states that:
(B) No public hospital shall do either of the following:
(1) Enter into a written transfer agreement with an ambulatory surgical facility in which nontherapeutic abortions are performed or induced;
(2) Authorize a physician who has been granted staff membership or professional privileges at the public hospital to use that membership or those privileges as a substitution for, or alternative to, a written transfer agreement for purposes of a variance application described in section 3702.304 of the Revised Code that is submitted to the director of health by an ambulatory surgical facility in which nontherapeutic abortions are performed or induced.”
In short, in order to maintain their license to practice, abortion clinics would be required to maintain written transfer agreements with hospitals that the new law prohibits. On top of this law, any abortion clinic within 30 miles of a private hospital that agrees to the written transfer agreement (which will be few and far between, as most private hospitals are religiously affiliated and wouldn’t agree to the transfer agreement) will be shut down.
Furthermore, doctors are prohibited from using public hospitals to provide abortion services by Ohio law ORC 5101.57 (B) which reads:
(B) No public facility shall be used for the purpose of performing or inducing a nontherapeutic abortion.
WHAT IT WILL MEAN FOR RAPE VICTIMS:
As part of the new bill, Rape Crisis centers will be funded with an accompanying gag-order of provisions set up by these Government-funded or nonprofit centers where the state government will intervene in the rape counseling the victim gets, they will intervene in the instuctions and information that the victim is allowed to be given, and will force the rape councilor to refer rape victims to abortion clinic that will be ineligible to perform abortions under the earlier line items that I mentioned.
As well as deny rape victims basic rights, the new bill will effectively:
Cut off federal funding to planned parenthood, an organization where 97% of funding goes to testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, cancer screening and prevention, pregnancy testing and prenatal services and the other 3% goes to abortion services.
Mandate a forced ultrasound, regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy. This does not exempt rape victims. If the woman refuses to look at the ultrasound, the doctor must give a visual description. The doctor must also explain the physiological state of the fetus; if it has eyelids, fingers, toes, a heartbeat. As if that isn’t enough of an intrusion of women’s rights; she must pay for the mandatory ultrasound out of pocket.
Force doctors to recite a speech given to them by the state government discussing the statistical probability of the woman carrying the fetus to full term, regardless of whether they agree with the statement or not.
Force doctors to “describe the development of nerve endings of the embryo or fetus and the ability of the embryo or fetus to feel pain at each stage of development.” Women undergoing an abortion in her first trimester must be told her fetus is capable of feeling pain even though there has been no conclusive medical evidence to prove this.
Force the physician performing the abortion to sign sign a “conflict of interest’ waiver stating how much money the doctor or his or her facility made from preforming abortions in the previous year. The physician must also provide a statement detailing how much money they or their clinic would lose if a woman decides to carry her pregnancy to term. Before performing the abortion the physician must give a woman these documents. Violation of this restriction is considered a first-degree felony and the offender can be fined $1 million.
Increases the mandatory wait time for a woman to receive abortion from 24 hours to 48 hours. The wait period cannot be bypassed unless “the pregnancy complicates the medical condition of the woman that the death of the woman would result from the failure to immediately terminate the pregnancy.” That means, for example, if a woman is raped —but is not teetering on the brink of death—she must wait the mandatory 48 hours and undergo all the above restrictions.
Under the new bill, Ohio lawmakers have redefined the term “pregnancy" as: “the human female reproductive condition that begins with fertilization", meaning that pregnancy begins even before implantation of the uterine lining. Many different types of birth control work by prevent implantation of the uterine lining. Under the new bill, birth control will be considered an abortion and a woman will be forced to have an ultrasound before being prescribed contraception.
If Governor John Kasich doesn’t veto the new budget by Sunday, June 30 at 11:59, these new legislatures will go into effect.
What can we do to stop it?
Call Gov. Kasich at 614-466-3555 and tell him to veto for women
Tweet Gov. Kasich at https://twitter.com/JohnKasich and tell him to veto for women
Email Gov. Kasich https://secure.ppaction.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&cmd=display&page=ActionAlertTakenPage&id=16604 and tell him to veto for women
WE CAN’T LET THE GOVERNMENT PLAY DOCTOR AND INFRINGE ON WOMEN’S RIGHT ANY LONGER!
Please signal boost this post. If this bill passes, Ohio will have some of the most pro-life and anti-women laws in the nation. We can’t go back to that.
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