At least two Republican lawmakers want to ban all abortions in Ohio and make it a crime to have one − a direct challenge to reproductive rights protections that voters approved in 2023.
Reps. Levi Dean, R-Xenia, and Johnathan Newman, R-Troy, are introducing the “Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act.” The bill would treat abortion like homicide by granting criminal and civil protections from the point of fertilization.
The bill also seeks to end in vitro fertilization, where an egg and sperm are fertilized outside the body, and could affect some contraception.
“IVF thrives on its ability to treat human beings as something lesser,” said Austin Beigel, president of End Abortion Ohio. “When you do identify all human beings as people under the law, what will happen is IVF will effectively end itself.”
Abortion rights advocates say that’s not what Ohioans voted for.
“These out-of-touch anti-abortion extremists want to give legal rights to fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of Abortion Forward, which helped pass the 2023 amendment. “This would strip Ohioans’ ability to make decisions for our lives, health and well-being, including banning all abortion care, banning some types of birth control, and denying IVF treatment that helps people build their families.”
Copeland said legislation like this emboldens law enforcement to investigate people during pregnancy. Black people, other people of color and immigrants are most likely to be targeted, questioned and harmed by policies like this, she said.
Criminal investigations for abortion: How is this abortion ban different?
Ohio Republicans have a long history of passing abortion restrictions and bans. However, past legislation has focused on penalizing doctors who perform abortions rather than the Ohioans who have them. This bill would change that.
“The Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act acknowledges the personhood of the preborn and the sanctity of human life as created in the image of God,” according to a news release from End Abortion Ohio. WEWS was the first to report on the new bill.
The bill, if passed, would be a direct challenge to a reproductive rights measure Ohioans passed with 57% of the vote in 2023 to protect access to abortion. In the months since, judges have struck down a ban on most abortions and a 24-hour waiting period requirement as unconstitutional. This proposed law would go even further.
End Abortion Ohio views the 2023 constitutional amendment as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the law of God, writing in its news release: “We must obey God rather than men, and we call upon our governing authorities to follow in that obedience.”
The ultimate goal is to challenge Ohio’s abortion rights amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court, Beigel said.
But Mike Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, said that’s a flawed approach because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that state lawmakers and courts should decide the future of abortion.
“This isn’t even a Hail Mary,” Gonidakis said. “It’s a strategy that won’t be successful at the legislative level, and it’s a strategy that won’t be successful at the judicial level.”
Will this abortion, IVF ban pass?
The future of this new bill remains unclear. Ohio’s GOP-controlled Legislature has not passed an abortion restriction in recent years. Abortion opponents have focused on defending laws already on the books and trying to change the culture around abortion.
“We hope this bill will change the culture of the Republican Party in Ohio, which I think has been afraid to speak truly and openly about abortion,” Beigel said.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said it’s too early to know where House Republicans stand on a bill that hasn’t been introduced or assigned to a committee.
Ohio Democrats say the bill is an effort to move Ohio backward.
“Voters overwhelmingly rejected these extreme measures at the polls − but now Republicans are introducing legislation even they admit is not what voters want,” Ohio Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Clyde said in a statement. “Ohio women would die under this cruel, disastrous legislation.”
Rep. Anita Somani, D-Dublin, said Republican lawmakers should focus on lowering the state’s infant mortality rate or making child care affordable instead. “If you’re looking for something to be pro-life, this is not it,” she said.
Somani, an OB-GYN, called the new bill “insane,” adding that abortion is already heavily regulated. “We shouldn’t be in the exam room as politicians.”
The Center for Christian Virtue, a prominent anti-abortion, Christian lobbying group, isn’t pushing the proposal. President Aaron Baer said in a statement: “This proposal is not a part of CCV’s efforts to overturn the abortion amendment and save lives.”
And Ohio Right to Life says the bill goes too far. “We have never supported criminalizing a woman for having an abortion, and we never will. It’s completely out of bounds and inappropriate,” Gonidakis said.
At least eight other states have considered bills to treat abortion as homicide, according to The 19th News.
State government reporter Jessie Balmert can be reached at jbalmert@gannett.com or @jbalmert on X.
What do you think of Ohio abortion bill?
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Republican lawmakers’ proposal would treat abortion as homicide, end IVF in state
Reporting by Jessie Balmert, Cincinnati Enquirer / The Columbus Dispatch
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