{"id":32235,"date":"2024-09-06T23:50:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T23:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/?p=32235"},"modified":"2024-09-06T23:50:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T23:50:21","slug":"life-after-issue-one-ohios-path-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/life-after-issue-one-ohios-path-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Life After Issue One: Ohio’s Path Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In spite of issue 1, we can still build an Ohio that reveals Life as the best option<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By: Lisa Murtha<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ohio, the recent passage of Issue One, which technically makes abortion legal until birth if a doctor deems it \u201cnecessary for a woman\u2019s health or life<\/a>,\u201d has made many pro-Lifers feel like the abortion debate has reached an impasse. But meeting voters where they are is a crucial first step to changing minds and hearts and finding common ground. Turns out, there are still many things Ohioans can do to support moms and babies and build a culture of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last June, Governor DeWine signed a two-year budget that would \u201cdirect $14 million to a state program that awards some of its grant dollars to crisis pregnancy centers,\u201d per NBC4<\/a>. And Republican state legislators have also proposed legislation that gives tax credits to pregnancy resource center donors (the donations must be made only to centers that do not \u201cperform, promote or contract with an organization that performs nontherapeutic abortions\u201d and is not affiliated with a person who does the same, says the Ohio Capital Journal<\/a>). But looking to other nearby states gives additional food for thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state of Tennessee has been well ahead of the curve for over a decade, and seems to have received solid legal counsel relating to preventing abortion from all angles, as evidenced by a series of laws and acts passed nearly every year from 2011 to the present. In fact, a quick review of Tennessee Right To Life\u2019s Building a Legacy of Life: Pro-Life Law History in TN<\/em><\/a>, shows the effort began in 1993, when the state established that \u201conly licensed physicians may perform abortions in Tennessee\u201d and \u201cphysicians and hospitals may not be forced against their will to participate in abortions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2011, the state government was on the offensive, first redirecting federal family planning funds to \u201clegitimate healthcare providers which do not promote or provide abortions,\u201d then going on to: ban dispensing abortion pills by telemedicine; implement a 48-hour waiting period to reduce coerced abortions; require abortionists to provide information on potential risks of abortion, available assistance for pregnant women and information on the availability of abortion pill reversal for those undergoing chemical abortions; ban the sale of fetal tissue and remains in the state; mandate that doctors be in the physical presence of a patient to whom they prescribe chemical abortion pills; requiring that aborted infants be buried or cremated; and more. Perhaps most important to those who argue abortion is necessary in some circumstances, Tennessee also clarified its own laws in 2023 to state that treatment for ectopic and molar pregnancies or miscarriages were not illegal, and are permitted within Tennessee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another route toward building a culture of Life could include flipping the script altogether. Instead of focusing on the negatives of abortion, what if Ohio pro-Lifers focus instead on what they can<\/em> do, starting with policies that help Moms and babies thrive? Consider again the state of Tennessee, which lead the way this past May after becoming \u201cthe first state in the country to offer free diapers to families enrolled in the states Medicaid program,\u201d per the Times Free Press<\/a>. Because of new legislation, the mother of every poverty-level child in Tennessee is entitled to 100 free diapers per month during the child\u2019s first two years of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStrong families are central to strong communities, and Tennessee is leading the nation in prioritizing resources for families in need,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee is quoted as saying in the AP piece. \u201cWe are the first state in the nation to cover the cost of diapers for mothers in the first two years of a child\u2019s life, and we hope this is a model for others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also of note to Ohio legislators, Tennessee itself has been a creative but effective leader in general in rejecting Federal funding with significant Federal strings attached, and instead creating its own state funding for public health concerns; consider that \u201chealth officials chose to fund [Tennessee\u2019s] HIV-prevention program with state dollars. Doing so allowed Tennessee to bypass federal requirements and refuse to fund Planned Parenthood\u201d (per the same Times Free Press story<\/a>). In other words, Tennessee remained committed to helping their people, but cut the heavily pro-abortion middleman (the Federal Government) out of the equation. Ohio, under the leadership of a Republican Governor, majority Republican supreme court and majority Republican House and Senate, could easily do the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio can also learn from its direct southern neighbor, Kentucky, where the state House committee recently approved HB 346, or the \u201cBaby Olivia Act,\u201d this past April. The Act would require public school districts to show middle school students (with parental consent) a three-minute-long video \u201cshowing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs and other vital organs in early fetal development,\u201d quoted the Lexington Herald-Leader<\/a> (as a mind-boggling aside, the Lexington Herald-Leader article\u2019s author writes that \u201cdescribing \u2026 early fetal cardiac activity as a \u201cheartbeat\u201d \u2026 is misleading\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If approved, the Baby Olivia Act<\/em> would be a simple but effective way of teaching Kentucky students the scientific fact that infants in the womb are indeed developing human beings and not just a faceless \u201cproduct of pregnancy,\u201d as they are often called in medical circles today. Abortion advocates have staunchly opposed turning the Baby Olivia Act into Kentucky law, but, per RN, State Rep and KY House Health Services Committee Chair Kim Moser, critics of this Kentucky legislation are missing the point. \u201cIt really is a very general starting point for conversation with kids… I invite parents, educators and our physician groups to be involved in this conversation.\u201d Again, Ohio parents, too, could be afforded this same opportunity to start important conversations with their kids, backed by simple, scientifically proven videos that illustrate the truth about how infants in the womb develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohioans may be legally limited by the overly broad wording of Issue One, but they can also try focusing on the strong but often elusive connection between human trafficking and abortion. Consider again the state of Tennessee, which passed legislation in 2024 (the Underage Abortion Trafficking Act) that \u201cmakes it unlawful for any adult to recruit, harbor or transport an underage pregnant girl for an abortion procedure or procure abortion chemicals in order to conceal it from her parents or guardian,\u201d says Tennessee Right to Life\u2019s website. As a result, abortion trafficking in Tennessee is a Class A misdemeanor with mandatory jail time of nearly one year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Carolina, which ranks 9th<\/sup> nationwide in the annual number of reported human trafficking cases, took a step in the same direction this past July<\/a> when the state passed its own Human Trafficking Bill. Though it does not address abortion specifically, it does establish strong penalties for people like landlords or hotel workers who knowingly allow human trafficking to occur (among many other things). It is a first step in the right direction, and one that Ohio could easily take as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buckeye state pro-Lifers can also follow the example of the national organization Students For Life America, whose efforts I wrote about in my prior article on chemical abortion, If You Live in Cincinnati, Are You Drinking Fetal Remains<\/em><\/a>?<\/em> By making Americans aware that untold amounts of toxic forever chemicals and nearly 700,000 aborted fetuses made their way into the US water supply last year alone, and <\/em>that our current water treatment systems have no way of removing toxic pharmaceuticals from our water supply (which increasingly gets recycled into drinking water), pro-life advocates can broach the subject from another angle \u2013 one sharing common ground with environmentalists, people who might not otherwise side with traditional pro-life arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, pro-Life advocates can always come at the issue from a solidly scientific standpoint, too. First, they can highlight the fact that 95% of all second trimester surgical abortions are performed via \u201cD&E,\u201d or flat out dismemberment, without giving unborn babies any kind of anesthesia (Ohio State University Vice Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology Lisa Keder once wrote in a 50-page affidavit for Planned Parenthood<\/a> that dismembering infants in utero without giving them pain medication is a superior form of abortion because it is least likely to harm a pregnant mother). Additionally, pro-Life advocates can also share scientifically proven information regarding unborn babies\u2019 ability to feel pain (per this National Right to Life document<\/a>, neonatal infants are hardwired to feel pain as young as five weeks, when pain receptors and nerve fibers begin appearing around the mouth; just days later, those same infants are fully capable of responding to touch). Even more powerful is the same document\u2019s comparison between the way human neonates and animal livestock are treated before they are each killed. \u201cIn a slaughterhouse, a method of slaughter is deemed legally humane only if \u2018all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective.\u2019\u201d Whereas, \u201cby contrast, D&E abortions, performed as late as 24 weeks (well after the child begins to feel pain), involve the dismemberment of the unborn child\u201d or suffocation by replacing amniotic fluid with salt solution. \u201cIn neither of these techniques is the unborn child provided with any form of anesthesia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lisa Murtha is an Award-Winning Journalist for Print and Visual Media, and the <\/strong><\/em>2023 National Society of Newspaper Columnists Finalist<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In spite of issue 1, we can still build an Ohio that reveals Life as the best option By: Lisa Murtha In Ohio, the recent passage of Issue One, which technically makes abortion legal until birth if a doctor deems it \u201cnecessary for a woman\u2019s health or life,\u201d has made many pro-Lifers feel like the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLife After Issue One: Ohio's Path Forward - Cincinnati Right to Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cincinnatirighttolife.org\/life-after-issue-one-ohios-path-forward\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Life After Issue One: Ohio's Path Forward - 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