Backer of ‘heartbeat’ bill wants to force vote

JULIE CARR SMYTH

AP State­house Correspondent

COLUMBUS — The chief advo­cate of a blocked Ohio bill that would impose the tight­est abor­tion restric­tion in the nation vowed Wednes­day to use a leg­isla­tive maneu­ver to try to force a vote before year’s end despite the Sen­ate president’s opposition.

A host of prac­ti­cal and polit­i­cal obsta­cles quickly arose that seemed des­tined to derail the effort.

Janet Fol­ger Porter, pres­i­dent of the con­ser­v­a­tive action group Faith2Action, said she’ll work to col­lect 17 Repub­li­can sig­na­tures on a dis­charge peti­tion, which can be used to force the so-called “heart­beat bill” out of a committee.

“We’ve got three weeks to find 17 peo­ple with the courage to sign and say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to end abor­tion now,’” Porter said. “That’s what they ran on, that’s what they won on, and now we’re just ask­ing them to make good on their word.”

The bill pro­posed ban­ning most abor­tions after the first detectable fetal heart­beat, as early as six weeks into preg­nancy. Its back­ers hoped such a restric­tion would spark a legal chal­lenge that could lead to over­turn­ing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade deci­sion that legal­ized abor­tion up until via­bil­ity, usu­ally at 22 to 24 weeks.

Porter claimed that Repub­li­can Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tom Niehaus broke a promise to the bill’s back­ers Tues­day with his deci­sion not to sched­ule a vote on the leg­is­la­tion, effec­tively killing it — bar­ring spe­cial cir­cum­stances — for the session.

Niehaus says he made the deci­sion to halt the bill in order to keep the Senate’s lame-duck focus on job cre­ation and eco­nomic growth.

“He did not break a promise,” said spokes­woman Angela Meleca.

Niehaus is in his final weeks at the State­house due to term lim­its. He cited lin­ger­ing con­sti­tu­tional con­cerns in his deci­sion not to move the bill.

Porter and her allies are flout­ing Niehaus’ short-term sta­tus, encour­ag­ing pro­po­nents of the bill to work around him and focus on the new Sen­ate lead­er­ship that will take over in January.

Porter declined to say whether she had the com­mit­ment of any sen­a­tor to sign the dis­charge peti­tion, nor whether one had been drafted. She called get­ting the names “very doable.”

Porter said Niehaus aside, 22 sen­a­tors ran on a “pro-life promise.” She also noted that she per­son­ally cham­pi­oned the state’s first suc­cess­ful dis­charge peti­tion in 1994, forc­ing a vote that led to the nation’s first ban on late-term abor­tion pro­ce­dures. The peti­tion was drafted by Repub­li­can William Batchelder, who’s now the House speaker.

He said forc­ing a vote would require two sep­a­rate dis­charge peti­tions: one to move it out of the Sen­ate Health com­mit­tee, and one to move it out of the Rules com­mit­tee that sets bills for floor votes.

Niehaus’ deci­sion to stop the bill stung back­ers led by Porter, who had run one of the most high-profile lob­by­ing efforts in recent state mem­ory to try to get the bill passed. Efforts includ­ing heart-shaped bal­loons, State­house fly­overs, and teddy bears.

Porter said law­mak­ers can expect another lob­by­ing push dur­ing the lame-duck ses­sion, with­out describ­ing what it might look like. “It won’t be bears,” she said.

She said her group and Ohio Right to Life, the state’s largest and old­est anti-abortion group, have been able to come to a com­pro­mise on a new ver­sion of the bill pre­sented to some law­mak­ers this week.

She declined to say what changes were made to the bill to bring the group around.

“Every­one is united in this new heart­beat bill,” she said.

Ohio Right to Life Pres­i­dent Mike Gonidakis said the groups have suc­ceeded in iden­ti­fy­ing some areas where com­pro­mise is pos­si­ble, but his group does not expect to see them addressed until next session.

“It’s hard to put those points in a 20-second sound bite. These are things we’ve been work­ing on for two years,” he said. “I believe we’ve iden­ti­fied com­mon ground to this, but that’s obvi­ously water under the bridge based on Pres­i­dent Niehaus’ decision.”

Even if the Sen­ate approved the bill before the Leg­is­la­ture adjourns in Decem­ber, it is still unclear whether Repub­li­can Gov. John Kasich would sign the bill into law. Kasich says he’s con­sis­tently opposed abor­tion, but has been non­com­mit­tal on the measure.

Still, Porter said there’s no sense in hold­ing back until Niehaus leaves: “I’m just going to say that the very def­i­n­i­tion of insan­ity is to do thing again and expect dif­fer­ent results.”

Posted by AP News on Nov 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.