Radical Anti-Choice “Heartbeat” Bill Dropped by Ohio Republicans

A defeat for the religious right
US News • Views: 26,563

The Republican Party of Ohio is being forced to give up their latest attack on women’s rights, as their absurd and deceptive “heartbeat” bill has been abandoned.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio bill that would have imposed the most stringent restriction on abortions in the nation met its end Tuesday.

Senators don’t plan to vote on the so-called “heartbeat bill” before the end of the legislative session next month, Republican Senate President Tom Niehaus said, citing concerns the resulting law might have been found to be unconstitutional.

The bill proposed banning abortions after the first fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into pregnancy. It had fiercely divided Ohio’s anti-abortion community, while energizing abortion rights proponents who protested against it.

Backers hoped the stringent nature of the bill would provoke a legal challenge with the potential to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.

An “audible heartbeat” was also the reason why an Irish Catholic hospital recently refused an abortion to a woman suffering a miscarriage — and allowed her to die instead: Irish Hospital Refuses to Perform Abortion, Lets Woman Die.

This is the future the Republican Party has in store for America.

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25 comments
1 Kragar  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 12:38:20pm

Obviously the Ohio GOP is a bunch on weak spined liberals and need to be replaced by real conservatives.
/

2 Interesting Times  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 12:43:32pm

Savita Had a Heartbeat, Too

For days now, I’ve been putting myself in Savita Halappanavar’s shoes.

I’m expecting. Seventeen weeks in, piercing pain sends me to the hospital. For three days, I’m miscarrying. There’s no hope for my child and my own health is fading. For three days, I’m in physical agony and doctors refuse my pleas to terminate the pregnancy to save my life. The child won’t survive, but there is a "heartbeat" and doctors fear terminating will violate my country’s laws. The unthinkable happens.

The tragedy that ended Savita’s life put a human face on the abortion issue. People are demonstrating in droves and even the Indian government is pressuring Ireland to change its laws. One demonstrator held a placard reading, “Savita had a heartbeat, too.”

3 erik_t  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 12:51:14pm

They didn't give it up. Just a delay. They're fighting a holy war, they think; they're not going to give parts of it up.

4 Charles Johnson  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 12:53:18pm

Oh yeah, they'll be back. They always come back.

5 wrenchwench  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 12:59:26pm

re: #4 Charles Johnson

Oh yeah, they'll be back. They always come back.

Just gotta pack the courts first....oh, wait. There will be a slight delay.

6 Ian G.  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:07:48pm

That horrific story out of Ireland makes me thank Zeus every day that I live in a secular republic with an explicit separation of church and state, and not in a place like Ireland where the same bullies whining about a loss of "religious freedom" here can enforce laws that would have a woman die rather that let her abort her deadly pregnancy.

7 Randall Gross  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:07:52pm

This is the barbaric future the Republican Party has in store for America.

8 Holidays are Family Fun Time  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:10:00pm

Luckily, there are sane people in the world. Even Catholics.

9 Holidays are Family Fun Time  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:10:44pm

Power and Greed.

We've seen quite a bit in the last few years.

10 Holidays are Family Fun Time  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:11:56pm

It is very sad that a woman had to die for many people to wake-up to this issue. What seems so obvious to the non-drones, takes a tragedy for the drones to see.

11 wrenchwench  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:16:33pm
Frank says:

The last election just laid the foundation for the next 500 years of Dark Ages. -- From 1981

My, how things change. And don't.

12 The Gender Ambiguity of a Flea  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:20:54pm

War On Women Continues: Arkansas Lawmakers Seize Opportunity To Push Anti-Choice Legislation

Mayberry said he plans to reintroduce legislation next year that would ban abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy, based on the disputed claim that a fetus can feel pain after that point. Mayberry’s bill was one of 10 anti-abortion measures that failed to clear the House Public Health Committee during last year’s session, and it’s one of three measures that Arkansas Right to Life says it plans to push for in the legislative session that begins Jan. 14.

A similar 20-week ban on abortions enacted in Arizona is currently being considered in court after the ACLU sued to block it, citing the law’s “truly, horrifically narrow” medical exception that could prevent women from getting abortions even in cases when it is medically necessary for them to end a pregnancy. In addition to Mayberry’s fetal pain bill, anti-choice activists hope Arkansas’ newly elected Republican lawmakers can push through measures to prevent the state’s health insurance exchange from offering coverage for abortion services and ban doctors from administering the abortion pill through video supervision in rural health clinics.

They're not going to stop. Ever. They don't care about civil liberties, the Supreme Court, or fundamentals of US law and governance.

13 Holidays are Family Fun Time  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:22:33pm

Arkansas, Texas, Arizona and Ohio have been in the most recent news.

Paying attention to the voters is not the GOP's strength.

14 erik_t  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:26:17pm

re: #12 The Questionable Timing of a Flea

They're not going to stop. Ever. They don't care about civil liberties, the Supreme Court, or fundamentals of US law and governance.

Well, speaking in sweeping generalities, their kids tend to be less bugfuck insane than they are. So they'll stop when they're dead, and the next generation will carry on a little less, and the one after a little less in turn...

15 darthstar  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:31:32pm

People are gettin' nekkid at Boehner's place.

[Link: gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com...]

16 b_sharp  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:31:57pm

The idea that it's a bad idea to tax people when in a re... Oh look! A robotic squirrel!

17 Mattand  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:34:30pm

re: #16 b_sharp

The idea that it's a bad idea to tax people when in a re... Oh look! A robotic squirrel!

You forgot to mention the alcoholic Chinese prostitutes.

18 Destro  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:36:07pm

What this means is the GOP wing nuts know they lost the abortion culture wars and are trying to sneak in abortion bans by other means. We should be vigilant but they know they lost.

19 Dark_Falcon  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:37:52pm

re: #16 b_sharp

The idea that it's a bad idea to tax people when in a re... Oh look! A robotic squirrel!

If Rand Paul wants to cut back on the insanity and start handing out new versions of Senator Proxmire's "Golden Fleece Awards", so much the better. Reductions in Bad Craziness are always a good idea.

20 dragonath  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:38:32pm

re: #15 darthstar

I was expecting Oompa Loompas

21 Bulworth  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:39:53pm

It's all about Freedom and Less Government. //

22 Holidays are Family Fun Time  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:42:05pm

yup

outta here for awhile.

Have a great afternoon all!

23 Kragar  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:43:50pm
24 The Gender Ambiguity of a Flea  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 1:51:25pm

Lindsey Graham suggests Susan Rice opposition is payback for John Bolton

When asked about the possibility of supporting Rice to be the next secretary of state, Graham insisted that she could not be confirmed until Congress was provided more information from the FBI investigation into the Benghazi attack.

“I remember the John Bolton episode pretty well,” he pointed out. “Our Democrat friends felt like John Bolton — they didn’t have the information needed to make an informed decision about Ambassador Bolton’s qualifications — John Bolton to be ambassador — and Democrats dug in their heels and said, ‘We’re not going to vote, we’re not going to consider this nomination until we get basic answers to our concerns.’”

“All I can tell you is that the concerns I have are greater today that they were before. We’re not even close to getting the basic answers.”

In 2005, President George W. Bush recess-appointed Bolton to the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after Democrats filibustered the nomination because the White House refused to provide information about his mishandling of N.S.A documents and his questionable assessment of Syria’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

“This is about partisan politics, not documents,” White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said at the time. “They have the information they need.”

After Bolton was forced to resign as ambassador, Graham opined that the Democrats’ filibuster “unfairly undermines President Bush’s prerogative to appoint his own people to his team.”

25 Eventual Carrion  Tue, Nov 27, 2012 3:11:28pm

re: #24 The Questionable Timing of a Flea

Lindsey Graham suggests Susan Rice opposition is payback for John Bolton

Maybe their problem is when she said we could "lose 49 countries in the world and it wouldn't make a bit of difference". You know, Like Bolt-on talking about the U.N..


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