Abortion ‘heartbeat bill’ gives Ohio an onerous distinction

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is just one signature away from staining the Buckeye State’s image by including it among the likes of Kansas, Texas and Alabama — states with the most restrictive and abhorrent abortion laws in the United States.

Indeed some say House Bill 178 will give Ohio the distinction of having the most prohibitive law on pregnancy termination in the land. It breezed through the hyper-partisan General Assembly a few days ago with a 27-7 vote in the Senate and an earlier 55-44 approval in the House.

HB 178, better known as the “heartbeat bill,” sponsored by state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, will ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable, unless the pregnancy threatens the mother’s health or life. His bill does not include exemptions even for victims of rape and incest.

WRONG ON SO MANY FRONTS

On practical, philosophical and fiscal responsibility grounds, the bill fails Ohio’s 11.5 million residents. It most egregiously fails the state’s 5.8 million women and girls.

On practical grounds, the heartbeat bill and about a dozen other abortion-restriction bills and inserts into the state budget this year illustrate a clear example of misplaced and misguided priorities. At a time when Ohio remains stuck in the muck of post-recession economic tumult, this is not the year to be wasting valuable legislative time tinkering with social reforms of any ilk.

The hours, days and weeks spent in Columbus on crafting, debating and enacting abortion initiatives would have been much better spent on crafting, debating and enacting initiatives to rebuild Ohio’s economy and to restore Ohioans’ livelihoods.

On philosophical grounds, the heartbeat bill bulldozes the constitutionally sacred wall of separation between church and state.

As we have argued many times in the past, tens of millions of Americans who do not belong to one of the strains of Christianity, Judaism or Islam that prohibits abortion in varying degrees should not be legally bound by their fellow citizens’ religious beliefs. Our First Amendment rights guarantee us freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

On fiscal responsibility grounds, the heartbeat bill flops as well. Even Ohio Right to Life – the foremost opponent of abortion rights – recognizes as much. The group said it believes it is not wise for Ohio to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars defending it, likely all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. What’s more, all of that money spent on legal defense could wind up being counterproductive. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the heartbeat bill could end up reaffirming more vigorously the principles of Roe vs. Wade first enunciated 38 years ago.

ABORTION RATES ARE FALLING FAST

Of course, it would do us little good to urge Gov. Kasich to use fiscal, philosophical and practical reasoning in refusing to sign the bill. He said over the weekend that he will sign it. In so doing, he will be prolonging the debate and divisions over abortion. Coupled with steep federal cutbacks in aid to Planned Parenthood and similar agencies, the emotional debacle could reverse real progress that has been made in Ohio and elsewhere to lower abortion rates. In Ohio, for example, the number of abortions has declined 22 percent in the last decade, to 28,721 in 2009, according to the state Department of Health.

Let’s face it. Few, if any, of us are gung-ho advocates of abortion. Instead of wasting time, money and civil liberties on heartbeat bills and other anger-inducing legislation, we’d hope the Ohio General Assembly and other state legislatures would find ways to bridge gaps between pro-life and pro-choice camps, find areas of common ground, move on to more pressing issues and quit stomping all over women’s constitutional rights.