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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Ohio HB 125: Behind the Hearts, Flowers and Balloons

Ohio HB 125: Behind the Hearts, Flowers and Balloons

by Kay|  March 6, 20111:27 pm| 62 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

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An emailer requested we look at the bill banning abortion in Ohio, and I said I would do that.

I read it as I would read any other Ohio bill, and it occurred to me that when I discuss this bill with women in Ohio I don’t have to do anything other than rely on the language in the bill.

I don’t have to make any theoretical slippery slope arguments involving liberty or broccoli or death panels. I don’t have to bang the table or distract with fetus testimony or hand out pretty balloons or construct an elaborate attenuated hypothetical or call out an army of paid shills. I can simply read the proposed statute and say with absolute unequivocal certainty that this is a radical departure from existing law. When I read it from a practitioner’s view, in that sense, it’s clean and easy.

In any event, let’s look at what they wrote:

Three sections, here’s the first:

Prohibits a person from performing an abortion on a pregnant woman prior to determining if the fetus has a detectible fetal heartbeat, except when there is a medical emergency. Requires a person who intends to perform an abortion to determine if there is the presence of a fetal heartbeat of the unborn human individual according to standard medical practice.

And the sanction on violating the first:

Provides that a physician who performs an abortion prior to determining if the fetus has a detectible fetal heartbeat is subject to disciplinary action by the State Medical Board.

The second:

Generally prohibits a person from knowingly performing an abortion with the specific intent of causing or abetting the termination of the life of an unborn human individual whose fetal heartbeat has been detected.

And the sanction on the second:

Provides that a person who violates the prohibition is guilty of performing an abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, a felony of the fifth degree.

This third part is where it gets a little tricky:

Requires a person who intends to perform an abortion on a pregnant woman after detecting a fetal heartbeat to provide the woman, no later than 24 hours prior to the performance of the intended abortion, with certain specified information regarding the statistical probability of bringing the unborn human individual to term. Requires the pregnant woman, no later than 24 hours prior to the performance of the intended abortion, to sign a form acknowledging that the pregnant woman received the specified information and that the pregnant woman is aware of the statistical probability of bringing the unborn human individual to term.

The drafters just told us that 1. The physician has to determine if the fetus has a heartbeat, and 2. Performing an abortion after detecting a heartbeat is a felony. Why is the woman signing a consent form to allow the physician to commit a felony? There’s an exception for the life of the mother, so I guess it could apply there, but that seems a stretch. Might be a good question for women to put to Ohio’s conservative legislators, in terms of what they have in store for us here.

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62Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    March 6, 2011 at 1:31 pm

    I get the feeling you’re about to see a very liberal definition of “medical emergency” get applied here. After all, if the mental state of the woman in question doesn’t qualify, what does?

  2. 2.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 1:36 pm

    @Yutsano:

    There’s a lot there to look at, but I didn’t approach it at that level. For example: the new language on the fetus.

    unborn human individual

    Hmmm.

  3. 3.

    suzanne

    March 6, 2011 at 1:38 pm

    I just really have to admire the hypocrisy of these people. After all, if one really and truly thought that abortion killed an “unborn human individual”, then it would seem consistent to punish the pregnant woman, no? However, that’s politically a non-starter, so they’re going after the doctors. Kind of like the “rape and incest” exemptions—less about actually reducing/eliminating abortions than picking off easy, i.e. unpopular, targets.

  4. 4.

    suzanne

    March 6, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    Dude. For maybe the first time EVAR I didn’t use the fuck-word in a comment, and it’s in moderation.

  5. 5.

    Davis X. Machina

    March 6, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    Legislators don’t read bills, they take positions on them. They certainly don’t write them, not state legislators. Maybe their staff do — maybe.

    They come in over the transom, pre-written, often with packaged testimony, numbers to call to arrange witnesses for hearings, etc. from lobbyist groups. They’re often sent out en masse to multiple states at once, or to the local representatives of various pressure groups — pro life groups, pastors, state religious conventions — in many different states at once.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    March 6, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    @kay: IANAL, and that third bit seems a convenient trap. And yet again THERE IS NO PUNISHMENT FOR THE ACTUAL PREGNANT WOMAN. That screams it’s about suppressing women and not blastocyst protection at all.

  7. 7.

    piratedan

    March 6, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    its a political twist to an existing meme, i.e. all your wombs r belong to us

  8. 8.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    @Davis X. Machina:

    That’s true here. An anti-choice activist drafted the bill. Still, any state legislator who signed off on it is going to make at least some attempt to defend it or pretend they understand it.

  9. 9.

    Kirk Spencer

    March 6, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    @Yutsano: Well of course not. (pardon the sarcasm here) Any woman who wants an abortion is insane – that’s intuitively obvious. As a result she gets a bye for the temporary condition.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    March 6, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    @suzanne:

    You used the sex with blood relatives word.

  11. 11.

    James E Powell

    March 6, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    Thought experiment. Let’s suppose that the anti-abortion forces get everything they want: Roe v. Wade overruled, abortion deemed murder, etc.

    What do they suppose the country will be like? How will it be different?

    What offense against God do they target next? They certainly are not going to celebrate their victory over abortion by going home.

  12. 12.

    suzanne

    March 6, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    @Kay: Oh, damn. Sorry sorry.

    O/T, but I have an ad for a company called TurtleShack at the top of the page. Apparently, you can buy live tortoises online, and the come with a health guarantee. FABULOUS.

  13. 13.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 6, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    So, if I don’t have my medical license, but I perform abortions, I don’t have to worry about this law?

  14. 14.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 6, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    @James E Powell:
    1. Gays
    2. Blacks
    3. Immigrants
    4. Liberals
    5. Women showing ankles
    6. Women in public without an escort

  15. 15.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Well, no, because we went from “physician” in the lawful section to “any person” in the unlawful sanction section.

    I know where you’re going next, the coat hanger scenario, but forget it, because they exempted the pregnant female.

  16. 16.

    Damien

    March 6, 2011 at 2:00 pm

    Given that all of these bills continually try to make a constitutionally/federally protected medical procedure illegal on the state level wouldn’t they be DoA from a legal standpoint? Supremacy clause (Article VI.2) and all that?

    I mean sure they’re specifically designed to provoke a Supreme Court fight, but until they get that far (if they get that far) wouldn’t existing precedent take… well… precedent?

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 6, 2011 at 2:03 pm

    @Damien: No, a duly passed law is considered Constitutional and valid until it has been overturned by a court.

  18. 18.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:04 pm

    @Yutsano:

    THERE IS NO PUNISHMENT FOR THE ACTUAL PREGNANT WOMAN.

    It’s written as if the pregnant women has no agency or autonomy. She’s entirely passive. It’s one of the many things I find so offensive about these laws. She’s not culpable, sure, but she’s also not an adult human being, in any ordinary legal sense of the word, because adults are ordinarily responsible for their actions, if only in a reckless or negligent sense. She’s just not there. To me, that alone leaves a mark. I’d like it if conservatives would stop stripping adult women of agency in pursuit of their ideological goals.

  19. 19.

    Origuy

    March 6, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    In Texas, the House just approved a bill that would require pregnant women to have a sonogram and view it before having an abortion.

    It would require many women who want an abortion — even victims of sexual assault — to have an ultrasound probe inserted into their uteruses at least 24 hours before the procedure. The method is used in early pregnancies, generally 10 weeks or less, opponents said.

    Juanita Jean has more to say.

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    March 6, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    @kay: Unless lack of said autonomy is the goal of such laws. Back to the kitchen barefoot with the lot of you! We’ll only let you out to vote cuz of that damned 19th Amendment, but otherwise you don’t exist. And don’t worry your pretty little heads, us ideologues are gunning for that law as well!

  21. 21.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    @Damien:

    If I have to speculate (sure!) I would go here: I think the “notice” provision is what they’re after. They hope to add a mandate for an sonogram and a script for the doctor to deliver and a consent form. I say that because they tried this in Texas, albeit in a more honest and straight-forward way. The whole intrusive vaginal sonogram was repulsive to women, so they renamed the same mechanism “heartbeat”.

  22. 22.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    @Origuy:

    Bingo. That’s a good guess.

  23. 23.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    March 6, 2011 at 2:11 pm

    @kay: On that note, then, will they start busting Wal-Mart for selling metal coat hangers, or pencils.

  24. 24.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    @Yutsano:

    There are practical and political reasons they don’t want to write law that sanctions the woman, but for me, the lack of autonomy and agency implied in that isn’t any gift: it diminishes women as adult actors.
    You have to believe they’re walking in their like mental incompetents, or 5 year olds, and that’s just bizarre. I can’t really divide the woman into “physical actor sans mind or will or discretion”, but conservatives seem to be able to do that.

  25. 25.

    Kryptik

    March 6, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Clorox is gonna have to answer to them there Feds soon, that’s fer sure.

  26. 26.

    sukabi

    March 6, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @kay: hmmmm, re the 3rd section… it sounds like they’re setting up the women seeking for an eventual “conspiracy to commit murder” rap along with their assisting Dr. / nurses

  27. 27.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    March 6, 2011 at 2:20 pm

    @James E Powell:

    that would be where it gets tricky, i suppose they would mandate virginity glitter and streamers be packed into a hymen tripped cockmine, so when a man consumates his bride he has a purity affirming moment that is worth defending heterosexuality for.

  28. 28.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:25 pm

    @sukabi:

    I don’t know. The whole “third section analysis” in the notes looks like they’re setting it up so if Roe is overturned this goes into effect, regardless of any prior determination of constitutionality. That’s actually not the case under prior Ohio law (they have to bring the bill again) but they cite this OH sentencing provision that was struck down to make their case.
    One of the things anti-choice activists do at the state level is set up a law to go into effect the day Roe is overturned. As I understand it, this looks like that.

  29. 29.

    Uloborus

    March 6, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    @Yutsano:
    Really? To me that says exactly the opposite. If they wanted to suppress women – if that was the reason for the anti-abortion position – they’d specifically want to punish them. They would be using fear and intimidation on the women rather than the doctors, rather than every other emotional bullying technique in the book.

    The thing is, it’s not actually about stopping babies from being murdered either. You’re right, that’s totally obvious. So I go with the ‘it’s about enforcing their culture’ explanation. They treat the woman with casual contempt, but their rules treat EVERYONE with casual contempt. Human life and happiness have no value compared to their rules.

    Seriously, for really conservative and especially religious cultures, those kinds of enforced values are important. The Pilgrims moved to America for exactly that reason. They couldn’t find anywhere back in Europe where they weren’t surrounded by more liberal attitudes. They had to flee to somewhere that they could live in isolation with everyone bound by the same set of rules, otherwise their children grew up speaking Dutch and wearing bright colors or what have you.

  30. 30.

    Sly

    March 6, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    @kay:

    It’s written as if the pregnant women has no agency or autonomy. She’s entirely passive.

    It’s written as if women do not have the ability for self-governance, and therefor do not deserve to have the right to self-governance protected as a matter of law.

    This is a rather ugly strain of political philosophy that goes back centuries and has informed every state-driven or state-sanctioned practice that most Americans now view as barbaric: Chattel slavery, ethnic cleansing, imperialism, etc. How do you justify oppression when you privilege self-governance as a cultural value? You deny that those you seek to oppress have the mental and/or moral capacity for self-governance. The only question that remains is whether or not the oppression that follows will either be overtly exploitative or exploitation justified as paternalism.

    Those poor women. Such fragile creatures. Can’t make their own decisions. So we’ll just make all the decisions for them. To protect them, you see. From themselves.

    How can you say that I don’t love you? Look at this beautiful cage I made for you!

  31. 31.

    ppcli

    March 6, 2011 at 2:49 pm

    There are lots of “where do these lunatics come from and how can they get people to listen to them” moments in surveying this bill and the whole surrounding debate. One of the minor ones is this snippet from the linked “heart-shaped balloon” page, a quote from a president of some Ohio Forced Birth organization: “Science has already given us a yardstick to determine if someone is alive–a beating heart. We just want to see that measurement applied evenly. This bill calls for an end to discrimination and the protection of every human being with a beating heart–no matter their age!” and from another Forced Birther: “Cardiac activity shows that an unborn baby is alive.”

    A beating heart is the “yardstick” given to us by “science” to determine if someone is alive? This is so nutty one doesn’t know where to start. But I do expect that the need to keep building new hospital wings to house all the brain dead patients on ventilators will be something of a problem for Ohio health care costs. Bit of a hit to the transplantation possibilities too.

  32. 32.

    kay

    March 6, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    @Sly:

    Those poor women. Such fragile creatures. Can’t make their own decisions. So we’ll just make all the decisions for them. To protect them, you see. From themselves.

    When we took apart the HB 3 bill (the federal bill on abortion funding that rewrote rape) I noticed there were two main arguments in the comments: “slut shaming” versus “turning women into children”. After reading this, I think I’m in the “turning women into children” camp. Sluts have agency and intent and are autonomous adult actors.
    This is probably worse, from my perspective, because I don’t care how conservatives perceive me, personally, in the sense of shame or morality, but I do care, a lot, how I’m depicted as powerless in Ohio law. I agree with you, too, that women as children is a lot older idea than women as sluts.

  33. 33.

    Jules

    March 6, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    The Forced Birth Supporters and the TEAGop Conservatives continue with the 2011 War on Women.

  34. 34.

    ppcli

    March 6, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    @Uloborus: “If they wanted to suppress women – if that was the reason for the anti-abortion position – they’d specifically want to punish them.” Don’t assume that they don’t see this as desirable. They just realize that it would be politically catastrophic to propose jailing women who have abortions. Political calculation, that’s all.

  35. 35.

    Ash Can

    March 6, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    It occurs to me that there could very well be another reason that pregnant women are exempted from legal culpability, other than the women-as-chattel one. If the women are guilty too, then any female lawmakers, or male lawmakers’ daughters/wives/mistresses, would be in a heap of trouble in the event of unwanted pregnancy followed by secretly taking the next logical step and getting a quick D&C before anyone can find out.

  36. 36.

    sukabi

    March 6, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    @ppcli: if that’s the case they should be firmly behind the end to the death penalty, the ban of tasers, any war efforts ect… as all these activities are used to interfere with and/or stop the beating of a human heart.

    but you know they aren’t against the above things…

  37. 37.

    Elegant Hedgehog

    March 6, 2011 at 2:55 pm

    I would wholeheartedly support the Texas pre-abortion mandatory invasive sonogram law if the Legislature paired it with a requirement that no man can get Viagra until he submits to a medically-administered rectal penetration with some sort of vibrating contraption.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    March 6, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    Since when did a heartbeat become the end-all-be-all of the measurement of human being? Dick Cheney has no heartbeat. Can we just kill him arbitrarily?

  39. 39.

    Bex

    March 6, 2011 at 3:00 pm

    @James E Powell: Contraception.

  40. 40.

    Yutsano

    March 6, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @Martin: Don’t give me ideas dude. Of course if that’s the definition then he can’t be tried for anything since legally he’s now dead. So let’s just say Cheney is a zombie and charge the criminal.

  41. 41.

    Uloborus

    March 6, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    @ppcli:
    Actually, I’m sure they would jail the women if it were politically viable. But nothing about the way they pursue this goal suggests that the woman is the target. The only thing that even makes this seem misogynistic is that an anti-abortion stance affects women much more than men.

    Again, they treat women like crap and objects, but they treat EVERYONE like crap and objects. Only the rule is important, no matter how destructive it is.

    Abortion is their favorite mainly because they get off on reminding themselves that they’re saving the lives of innocent babies. I mean, look at the language of every anti-abortion argument. ‘We’re good people who care stopping you from hurting the innocent’ when a quick look at every other position they hold makes it clear they don’t give a rat’s ass about the innocent. They use ‘think of the children!’ arguments the same way whenever they can, and go similarly insane for any rule they can use that slogan to justify.

  42. 42.

    R. Porrofatto

    March 6, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    How would it be determined after the fact that the “unborn human individual” didn’t have “a detectable fetal heartbeat?” Or that the physician actively “determined” this? Is there any provision for documenting this, i.e., a sonogram that must be taken and kept as proof?

  43. 43.

    debbie

    March 6, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    Thanks for this post.

    Tomorrow at 11:00 am, there will be a 40-minute discussion about this legislation on my local NPR station, between a state legislator and a local NARAL rep. There’s a link to listen live here:

    http://www.wosu.org/allsides/

  44. 44.

    Uloborus

    March 6, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    @R. Porrofatto:
    That should be easy to prove. The same law requires them to check for a heartbeat, and that goes in the medical records.

  45. 45.

    sal

    March 6, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    I thought conservatives didn’t believe in statistical predictions, e.g. the census, global warming, etc? In the words of the sage pundit Deandre Cole, What Up with That?

  46. 46.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 6, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    @kay: I agree with you on these points. I, too, especially care, a lot, how I’m depicted as powerless in Ohio law. Frankly, I’d rather conservatives think me a slut, were I to care how they view me at all. But this is an old, old trope. Sigh.

  47. 47.

    RSA

    March 6, 2011 at 3:22 pm

    Kay, where does the comment section on a bill come from, and what’s its purpose? For example…

    2. The bill defines the terms “fetus” and “unborn human individual” and uses the terms interchangeably. While not identical, these terms are very similar and could possibly cause confusion in the application of the bill.

  48. 48.

    ppcli

    March 6, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    @James E Powell: Somebody mentioned contraception, and that will no doubt be one thing. But there will be lots of work to do: There will probably still be many states where abortion is legal, so they may try to make it illegal to leave an abortion-prohibiting state to go to a state where abortion is legal, to have an abortion, for example. Even if it’s banned in all states, they could still prohibit travel to Canada or Europe …

  49. 49.

    Sly

    March 6, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    @kay:
    From your perspective there may be a distinction between a slut and a child in terms of moral agency, but I seriously doubt that distinction exists in the minds of those championing the bill.

    A slut, at least in the non-professional sense, is merely a woman does not have a man in a permanent and legal position to regulate her activity. Slut-shaming is a method used to break through her natural emotional fragility to coerce her into desiring an owner. No owner? Then she becomes the victim of her own base desires, because she lacks the willpower of a man to overcome them on her own. In other words, she lacks the capacity of self-governance and must have someone else govern her.

  50. 50.

    Ella in New Mexico

    March 6, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    Where are the women of Ohio in all this? Why are they not storming the doors of the Capital building tomorrow to demand this piece of trash not be thrown out?

  51. 51.

    Meg

    March 6, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    On the financial aspect, one, way to drive up the medical cost by demanding extra procedure. Two, the the poor women have to take take two days off from work to have a procedure done. Then they will complain that the poor people simply have too many babies.

  52. 52.

    Lurker

    March 6, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    Where are the women of Ohio in all this? Why are they not storming the doors of the Capital building tomorrow to demand this piece of trash not be thrown out?

    I’m curious about this, too. Do anti-choice female voters truly think that laws like this will not affect them or their friends/family?

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne (iPod Touch)

    March 6, 2011 at 4:32 pm

    Does it strike anyone else that they’ve just managed to criminalize ending an ectopic pregnancy? I also love the provision that the doctor tell you about the viability of the fetus in writing — who wouldn’t want an official written note from their doctor filed with the state telling them that their fetus has no hope of survival?

  54. 54.

    Triassic Sands

    March 6, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    Kay, you didn’t reproduce the part of the bill where the state promises to pay for the upbringing of the child in the event the parent(s) can’t afford to.

  55. 55.

    Calouste

    March 6, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @ppcli:

    A beating heart was the yardstick by which medical science determined life in the 19th century, maybe a little bit later. Which gives you a clue as to which era these people are living in mentally.

  56. 56.

    James E Powell

    March 6, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    @Lurker:

    Do anti-choice female voters truly think that laws like this will not affect them or their friends/family?

    As many writers have remarked, the anti-choice movement is mostly concerned with other women’s abortions.

    Apart from that, to the extent that anti-choice female voters think about laws like this, they just don’t care how they will affect others.

  57. 57.

    Hob

    March 6, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    If it’s a felony for the doctor to perform an abortion under these conditions, and the woman signs a thing saying that she understands that that’s what the doctor is doing, how on earth could the woman not be liable for abetting a felony? Seems like she’d be well advised to refuse to sign the form– in which case she’s also breaking a law– but one for which there’s no penalty. But if she signs it, I don’t see how she has any protection (I mean except for Roe, but they can’t prosecute the doctor under Roe anyway, right??)

  58. 58.

    piratedan

    March 6, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    well I think this sums it up nicely….

    http://wins.failblog.org/2011/03/06/epic-win-photos-abortion-retort-win/

  59. 59.

    TenguPhule

    March 7, 2011 at 1:35 am

    how on earth could the woman not be liable for abetting a felony?

    Property has no rights or responsibilities.

    SATSQ.

  60. 60.

    TenguPhule

    March 7, 2011 at 1:36 am

    Do anti-choice female voters truly think that laws like this will not affect them or their friends/family?

    Yes.

    SATSQ.

    And on that note, it’s a pity that medical confidentiality prevents public shaming of Anti-abortion women by listing their names and faces for all to see for those that got abortions themselves.

  61. 61.

    TenguPhule

    March 7, 2011 at 1:37 am

    A beating heart was the yardstick by which medical science determined life in the 19th century,

    Soon we will be back in the Dark Ages, where even having a heartbeat is not necessary for determining life. It will be whatever the Pope says it is!

  62. 62.

    kay

    March 7, 2011 at 7:12 am

    @Hob:

    If it’s a felony for the doctor to perform an abortion under these conditions, and the woman signs a thing saying that she understands that that’s what the doctor is doing, how on earth could the woman not be liable for abetting a felony?

    I didn’t mean to imply they were tricking her into aiding and abetting. The provision is contradictory, and it doesn’t make sense. That’s all I’m asking about.

    These are the same people who amended the Ohio constitution to bar gay marriage (and assure the re-election of George W Bush) and in doing so, voided a domestic violence statute. The DV statute had to be re-written to include the “family members” conservatives had immunized. Ooops! Federal anti-choice activists wrote a bill that redefined rape.

    They’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They write law on women’s health with a certain careless abandon that ought to frighten people.

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