Two Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation in the Ohio House of Representatives that would ban abortion in all cases.
Cleveland.com reported the bill makes an “unborn human” a person under Ohio’s criminal code, therefore making abortions subject to murder, manslaughter, homicide, and wrongful death lawsuits.
State Rep. Ron Hood, a sponsor of the bill, said he believes life begins at conception, and “the goal of this bill is to first of all continue to get the word out that life does begin at conception and move the debate in that direction, and to protect unborn Ohioans from being aborted.”
Another sponsor of the bill, Representative Nino Vitale, characterized the legislation as a “save them both” bill with no exceptions for abortion in the case of risk to a mother’s life.
“Life isn’t always giving us things by our choice, and I don’t want to put a woman through a second trauma after she’s been through such an awful first one,” Vitale said.
It’s unclear how the bill would stand up to a legal challenge if it’s passed and signed into law. The Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion is legal.
The bill has already come under scrutiny from abortion-rights advocates. NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio criticized the proposal, arguing it would make doctors subject to murder charges that could send them to prison or death row.
“Anti-choice extremists from the Ohio Statehouse to the White House are lining up their dominoes to topple Roe v. Wade and punish those who seek or provide abortion care,” Executive Director Kellie Copeland told Cleveland.com.
Ohio has steadily increased abortion restrictions in the last few years having passed 20 restrictions since 2011.
In 2016, the state’s Republican Gov. John Kasich vetoed the “heartbeat bill,” which would have banned abortions six weeks into pregnancy and signed a 20-week ban instead.
The new bill proposed by Hood and Vitale is likely to be challenged in court, but abortion opponents hope the bill will push the U.S. Supreme Court, which leans 5-4 conservative, to review past decisions that legalize abortion.
