Republican state legislators who oppose abortions are planning to introduce legislation on Wednesday to abolish nearly all abortion procedures in Ohio, ABC News reported. The proposed legislation would also make most abortions a crime.
State Reps. Levi Dean, R-Xenia, and Jonathan Newman, R-Troy, are spearheading the effort while working with anti-abortion activists with the group End Abortion Ohio.
One of the leading paragraphs in a draft version of the bill indicates it would “acknowledge the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from the beginning of biological development to natural death.”
End Abortion Ohio’s Austin Beigel told ABC News the bill “identifies those personhood rights starting at the moment of fertilization, when the new distinct organism is formed, the new human life that being that person now has equal protection under the law.”
He said it comes down to identifying when life begins.
“All it does is identify all human beings as persons deserving equal protection of the law, both born humans and preborn humans,” he said.
Kellie Copeland, executive director of Abortion Forward, a group that helped get the 2023 Ohio state abortion amendment passed, said the bill would run contrary to the intent of a majority of Ohio voters.
“This is the most extreme and anti-life legislation that you can imagine,” she said. “It would strip Ohioans of their constitutionally guaranteed right to bodily autonomy, and that’s the goal of this legislation.”
The bill is based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to work around Ohio’s state constitutional amendment on abortion rights.
The draft version of the bill would prohibit abortion in nearly all circumstances, including in cases of incest and rape. Exceptions would be allowed for spontaneous miscarriage and cases in which an abortion could save the life of a pregnant woman. Criminal charges could be brought against abortion providers and those who get an abortion.
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