Ohio House Passes Heartbeat Bill

by Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Worthy News)-- Ohio Republicans recently passed a bill that prohibits abortions if a fetal heartbeat is discernible.

The new bill would challenge the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade, which ruled that states were forbidden from regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy and could only enact abortion regulations reasonably related to maternal health in the second and third trimesters, protecting the life of the fetus no sooner than the third trimester.

The proposed Ohio legislation contains no exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother.

House Bill 125 would prohibit the procedure as soon as a heartbeat is detected which, according to the American Pregnancy Association, can be discerned between five and a half to six weeks. House Bill 78 would block abortions at 20 weeks after conception.

Further, the House approved another bill that prohibited coverage of non-therapeutic abortions under federally mandated insurance exchange health plans

Predictably, the bills were supported by Republicans and opposed by Democrats.

"You should feel uncomfortable about this vote," said Rep. Bob Hagan, D-Youngstown. "This is about the rights of women to make a decision about what their life will be ..."

"There are over 28,000 abortions in Ohio each year," said Rep. Kristina Roegner, R- Hudson, primary co-sponsor of HB 78 . "This bill, if passed, would save the vast majority of them. These are all little babies with a beating heart, each one deserving the chance of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

"Without life, nothing else matters," said Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, R-Napoleon and primary sponsor of HB 125. "The main reason I ran for the Legislature years ago was to protect unborn life, and this bill is a big step toward doing that today."