Youngstown Daily Legal News

Legislation would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: August 31, 2015

A contested Senate bill that would generally ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy stands ready to move on to the Ohio House.

Senate Bill 127, jointly sponsored by Sens. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, and Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, would make it a fourth-degree felony to purposely perform, induce or purposely attempt to perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman when the probable post-fertilization age of the unborn child is 20 weeks or greater.

Before the bill yielded a 23-9 vote in the Senate, the chamber’s Health and Human Services Committee heard a collection of testimony from interested parties.

Rev. Cheri Holdridge, a board member of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, opposed the proposed legislation.

“I come to you as a pastor who has walked beside women and their families as they have made the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy. I can tell you that for the women I have counseled, this is not a decision they have come to lightly,” she said.

“They have prayed and sought counsel from physicians, pastors, counselors, family members and trusted friends. In the end, the decision for each was a personal one.”

SB 127 would require a physician who performs or induces or attempts to perform or induce an abortion to submit a report with specified information to the Ohio Department of Health within 15 days after the woman is discharged and provides for court enforcement, including punishment for contempt of court, if the physician fails to submit a report within a certain period of time.

“I myself have had to make the difficult decision of how to deal with an unplanned pregnancy in my own life. It was a hard decision and a personal one,” Holdridge said.

“I am grateful that the Supreme Court of our land has ruled that I had the right to make that decision for myself, in conversation with my doctor, my pastor and my family. Women are intelligent, compassionate creatures and we have the ability to make these hard decisions for ourselves. At the Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, we believe that even at 20 weeks the choice still belongs to the woman.”

Lehner has campaigned for the bill by saying late-term abortions are shown to be more dangerous for women and that the “unborn may even feel pain more intensely than a human adult.”

She has noted that the U.S. is one of only seven countries in the world, along with North Korea and China, that permit abortions after the 20-week mark.

Lehner said SB 127 “presents the capacity of the baby to feel pain as an additional and compelling state interest in protecting unborn babies which is separate and independent from the viability standard. Additionally, it may be said that a woman who fails to act before 20 weeks has consented to the state’s intervention on behalf of the developing child.”

In addition to noting that medical science confirms the evidence of pain in unborn humans, Lehner said late term abortions are not rare.

“While many would lead you to believe that they are almost always for difficult situations involving the mother’s health or another extenuating circumstance, the data from both medical literature and late-term abortion providers themselves does not back up that claim,” she said.

Legislation similar to SB 127 has been enacted in Texas, Indiana, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Idaho, Georgia and West Virginia.

“Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the fact is that Americans largely support restrictions on late-term abortions,” Lehner said. “A November 2014 Quinnipiac poll demonstrated that 60 percent of Americans support the legislation.”

SB 127 is awaiting a House committee assignment.

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