A bill that would effectively ban abortions in Ohio has been introduced in the legislature for a fourth time. The “heartbeat” bill bans abortion at the first detectable sign of a heartbeat, which is usually around six weeks.
As a conservative who is staunchly pro-life, I can understand wanting to propose drastic measures to eradicate the legal killing of the innocent unborn — but as much as I applaud these efforts, they are misguided and typically fail. A much more effective way to reduce the number of aborted babies is to go about it via more shrewd means.
The majority of pro-life advocates think Roe v. Wade, while a matter of law, is unfounded and morally bereft, so it fits within their ideology to try to influence such a decision. The legislative bodies which have been able to reduce the number of abortions have done so not by trying to outright ban abortion, which the Ohio bill essentially does, but by forcing Planned Parenthood offices (the county’s largest abortion provider) to reach healthcare standards (which they often don’t), thereby forcing them to shut down.
Indeed this last year, the number of abortions was at an all-time low, and Bloomberg reported the number of Planned Parenthood clinics shutting down was at an all-time high due to similar legislative decisions. A law requiring Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas to meet the same kind of healthcare standards as hospitals contributed to at least 30 shutting down. (It’s worth noting the Texas Supreme Court did deem the law “unconstitutional” as it put an “undue burden” on pregnant women, but it played a heavy role in shutting down clinics nevertheless.)
In 2011, 92 pro-life laws were enacted and nine states voted to withhold funding from Planned Parenthood. At least 38 states require parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion, 28 states require a waiting period between counseling and abortion, and at least 17 states require women receive counseling before an abortion. According to information from the Guttmacher Institute: “State legislatures enacted more restrictions on abortion in the past five years than they did in any five-year period since the United States legalized abortion in 1973.”
As I’ve written before, this concept of strategically, rather than overtly, ending or minimizing abortion isn’t altogether unfounded.
William Wilberforce endured a 30-year struggle to end slavery, failing year after year to pass a bill along those lines. Yet as it’s portrayed clearly in the film “Amazing Grace,” British Parliament actually adopted the first ban on the slave trade due to a bill regarding wartime patriotism.
Wilberforce and his friend Thomas Clarkson figured about 80 percent of all slave ships sailing to the New Indies were flying the neutral American flags to prevent them from being boarded by privateers. They remained silent so as not to let on their support, but parliament passed the Foreign Slave Trade Bill, effectively ending the slave trade overnight and one year later the Slave Trade Act passed.
If conservatives want to continue to reduce abortions, passing bills that essentially ban the procedure may not be effective. However, passing bills that are more shrewd may have the same effect over time.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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