The Ohio legislature Tuesday sent a bill to Gov. John Kasich that would outlaw most abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as six weeks into pregnancy but typically closer to 10 to 12 weeks. The legislation has been dubbed the “Heartbeat bill.”
To abortion supporters, a heartbeat is an arbitrary cutoff point of fetal development. But science and medicine does not treat it as such in other contexts. Clinical death, for example, is defined by the cessation of blood flow and breathing, which are a result of the heart stopping to beat.
Other recent pro-life bills have sought to ban most abortions once the fetus can feel pain or once they can live outside the womb. For many, these are important benchmarks for what it means to be a person, a designation which confers rights, including the constitutional right to life.
One virtue of these bills is that they educate people about fetal development — and that education can reduce abortion. Most people don’t know that fetuses can feel pain as early as 20 weeks and can live outside the womb starting at 22 weeks. Sure, there is debate over exactly where to draw the line of viability, and all babies are different. One “miracle” baby survived after being born at 21 weeks, while many others die in the ninth month of pregnancy.
These laws help to humanize the child and to combat misinformation by abortion groups and pro-abortion rights politicians who claim that a fetus is little more than a clump of cells.
Kasich will have ten days to veto the law. If he doesn’t, the bill will automatically become law.
Daniel Allott is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner
