Abortion foes push fetal heartbeat bills in states

ANN SANNER

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — A nation­wide coali­tion of anti-abortion groups said Wednes­day it is prepar­ing to push leg­is­la­tion in all 50 states requir­ing that preg­nant women see and hear the fetal heart­beat before hav­ing an abortion.

The effort fol­lows the intro­duc­tion of sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion at the fed­eral level by Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date and U.S. Rep. Michele Bach­mann of Minnesota.

Ohio Right to Life direc­tor Mike Gonidakis, whose group is part of the coali­tion, said the 50-state push was not a response to a bill mov­ing through the Ohio Leg­is­la­ture that would out­law the pro­ce­dure at the first detectable heart­beat. His group has not endorsed the Ohio bill because of legal con­cerns, though Bach­mann has said she sup­ports it.

“We know it can with­stand a judi­cial chal­lenge, and we know it’s an approach that’s worked over the years,” Gonidakis said of his coalition’s pro­posal. “Hun­dreds of thou­sands of babies are alive now because their moth­ers heard the heart­beat and changed their minds.”

Should the Ohio bill become law, it would impose the nation’s most strin­gent abor­tion limit. The leg­is­la­tion has divided the anti-abortion com­mu­nity in Ohio, the home state of Inter­na­tional Right to Life founder Jack Willke.

Ohio Right to Life has with­held its sup­port for the so-called “heart­beat bill,” con­tend­ing the mea­sure could not with­stand a court chal­lenge under Roe v. Wade. The land­mark U.S Supreme Court rul­ing sought to strike a bal­ance between states’ rights to limit the pro­ce­dure and a woman’s right to privacy.

The Ohio bill ties an abor­tion ban to the detec­tion of the fetal heart­beat and has the poten­tial to pre­vent abor­tions as early as six weeks into preg­nancy — before many women know they are pregnant.

Scores of restric­tions aimed at reduc­ing access to abor­tion have been approved so far in state leg­is­la­tures this year. Five states — Alabama, Idaho, Indi­ana, Kansas, and Okla­homa — have passed mea­sures ban­ning vir­tu­ally all abor­tions after five months of pregnancy.

The informed-consent bill that’s being pushed in the 50 states would require abor­tion prac­ti­tion­ers to make the fetal heart­beat audi­ble and vis­i­ble to preg­nant women before an abor­tion. It’s being backed by the National Right to Life, the U.S. Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops, Amer­i­cans United for Life, Susan B. Anthony List and Fam­ily Research Coun­cil Action.

While the sep­a­rate strate­gies show inter­nal dif­fer­ences, their pur­pose is the same, said Kel­lie Copeland, exec­u­tive direc­tor of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, an abortion-rights group.

“Let’s be clear, they all want to take away a woman’s abil­ity to make per­sonal, pri­vate deci­sions by out­law­ing abor­tion,” Copeland said.

Gonidakis said the coalition’s plan has been in the works for six months, and has been vet­ted with coali­tion lawyers.

“This is it,” Gonidakis said. “This is the one that’s going to con­tinue to save lives in the cur­rent court envi­ron­ment we have.”

The Ohio heart­beat bill cleared the state’s House in late June, though it has been stalled in the Senate.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tom Niehaus has said he wants a group of state law­mak­ers to review any legal issues related to the bill and report back to him in November.

On Wednes­day, sup­port­ers of the Ohio bill touted the measure’s sup­port in the state, and they announced the cre­ation of a new anti-abortion non­profit, Ohio Pro­Life Action, that will work on get­ting the bill passed.

The group’s pres­i­dent said she sees the orga­ni­za­tion as “fill­ing the void” cre­ated by the Ohio Right to Life’s oppo­si­tion to the bill.

“We have just found that in work­ing on this bill that there is a real need for a statewide orga­ni­za­tion,” pres­i­dent Linda Theis told reporters at a news conference.

Willke, of Cincin­nati, has thrown his sup­port behind the new group.

Gonidakis said Willke resigned from the board of Ohio Right to Life in August and cited his fail­ing health in his res­ig­na­tion letter.

Theis called the informed con­sent mea­sure a “great step,” and said her orga­ni­za­tion would sup­port it.

Still, she said, “Their bills are just safer. We’re say­ing to the courts, ‘We’re going to give you some­thing you haven’t seen before. Tell us what you think.’”

Posted by AP News on Oct 12 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.