COLUMBUS – In what anti-abortion advocates called a “monumental” and “groundbreaking” move, Ohio’s Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would almost entirely ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in a 23-9 vote.
It was one of two measures to make progress in the Statehouse that would restrict access to abortions in Ohio.
If the bill becomes law, the regulations would make Ohio one of the country’s strictest states for abortion access, abortion rights supporters say.
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“This is the most important piece of legislation Ohio Right to Life has passed in quite a long time,” the group’s President Mike Gonidakis said, adding he’d be “stunned” if the bill failed to pass the House. “This is a strategic step into hopefully some day ending abortion.”
Kellie Copeland, executive director for NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said the bill “sacrifices the health and reproductive rights of women at their most vulnerable moment,” in a release Wednesday.
The bill’s opponents challenged that characterization as scientifically unsound during testimony before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee earlier Wednesday. They say some research shows fetuses don’t feel pain until the third trimester, and they argue the proposal is too restrictive for women and doctors.
Before voting, the committee tabled a proposal to add exemptions for cases of rape and incest.
More than a dozen states have enacted some form of such “pain-capable” abortion legislation.
In recent years, Republican lawmakers in the majority have chipped away at abortion access by requiring women to wait 24 hours after meeting with a doctor to get an abortion; require transfer agreements between abortion clinics to be with private hospitals — many of which are affiliated with religious groups who don’t support abortion rights; and requiring parental consent for minors seeking abortions.
A Republican-dominated panel also voted on a compromise two-year state budget that includes a restriction limiting the legal distance from an abortion clinic to a transfer hospital to 30 miles. NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio argues that a Toledo judge has said such a restriction is unconstitutional.
Abortion providers currently are required to have a patient-transfer agreement with a private hospital.