Heartbeat Bill barely beating

Columbus

It started in early 2011, with a press conference near the Statehouse in a room filled with red, heart-shaped balloons.

That was right after Republicans swept the statewide elections and secured control of both of the chambers of the Legislature.

Backers called it the Heartbeat Bill because it would ban abortions as soon as a fetal heartbeat could be detected — generally within weeks of conception.

Fifty or so Republican members of the House signed on as co-sponsors, bringing enough votes in the chamber to move it quickly. Women’s health advocates were rightly concerned and had press conferences and rallies to voice opposition. But by June of that year, the Heartbeat Bill passed the Ohio House and headed to the Ohio Senate for further consideration.

For backers, that’s when the trouble started. Republicans in the Senate focused their attention on other abortion-related legislation, leaving the Heartbeat Bill to collect dust in committee.

Proponents quickly took action. In September 2011, hundreds of red-clad supporters packed the Statehouse for a four-hour prayer service, delivering bundles of heart-shaped balloons to lawmakers urging approval.

“This day signals the beginning of the end of abortion on demand,” Janet Porter, president of Faith2Action and initiator of the proposed statute, said at the time.

Nonprofit group

A month later, proponents formed a new nonprofit group to push for passage after breaking with Ohio Right to Life in a disagreement over the potential impact of the Heartbeat Bill — the former saying it would serve as the vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade, the latter saying it could undo years of progress in restricting abortions.

In January 2012, Heartbeat backers adopted a different approach. Some took oversized, graphic pictures of aborted fetuses to the hometowns of Republican senators who weren’t supporting the legislation, complete with posters displaying the Senate president’s phone number.

They also had regular demonstrations featuring mothers who had abortions and regretted the decision, pastors who prayed for action, even schoolchildren who proclaimed desires to “save babies with beating hearts.”

They distributed stuffed bears with electronic beating hearts to senators. When that didn’t work, they delivered thousands of roses to lawmakers’ offices.

Come May 2012, Folger and proponents took their campaign a step further, warning Republicans who wouldn’t support their movement and taking out newspaper ads that read, “After 54 million dead babies, don’t ask us to wait any longer.”

They inflated a 30-foot heart outside the Statehouse and a near life-size rhinoceros and declared open season on “Republicans in Name Only.”

Things toned down a bit in September of that year, when backers focused their efforts on behind-the-scenes negotiations with lawmakers, hopeful for action following the general election.

The Republican Senate president at the time repaid them by moving the Heartbeat Bill to the rules committee, effectively killing it for the session.

Things were quiet for a few months, until August 2013, when Republicans announced their intentions to reintroduce the Heartbeat Bill, this time bringing a reality TV show family to the Statehouse to rally support.

The new bill, with about 40 Republican co-sponsors, has had no hearings, and GOP leaders haven’t indicated any inclination to move the bill through both chambers before this General Assembly ends.

Last week, Porter & Co. were back outside the Statehouse for another rally, praying for several hours and delivering stacks of baby clothes to lawmakers and Gov. John Kasich.

Porter told reporters afterward she’s running out of ideas to persuade pro-life legislators to act.

“We are making an appeal to heaven, because God is the one that’s going to have to do what we’re unable to do,” she said. “He’s going to have to move on the hearts of these legislators, and that’s what we’re counting on.”

At this point, it appears that divine intervention is the only thing that will move the Heartbeat Bill this session.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.