This summer, eight Republicans in the state House signed on to a bill to “entirely abolish abortion” in Ohio.
Last week, two House Republicans introduced legislation in committee that would require women to undergo a 24-hour waiting period before they can receive an abortion to ensure they’re “fully informed.”
On Tuesday, two other Republicans proposed legislation in another committee to block Medicaid funds from flowing to Planned Parenthood.
And elsewhere in the Statehouse that same day, a House Republican held a press conference touting legislation to add Ohio to a list of six Republican states that force students to annually watch a three-minute video about fetal development produced by an anti-abortion advocacy organization.
“The dehumanization of the unborn child must stop,” said Kate Makra, president of the Right to Life Action Coalition, speaking to reporters at the legislative press conference Tuesday.
Ohio voters in 2023 amended the constitution to broadly guarantee access to abortion and other reproductive care for all Ohioans. The referendum toppled years of restrictive laws, including a near total ban on access in Ohio, all passed by Ohio Republicans over the past two decades.
Once a centerpiece of Republican politics, abortion fell into a quiet period after the vote that seems to be ending. Republicans are once again signalling an interest in resuming a longrunning legal crusade to restrict or eliminate women’s access to legal abortions.
Republicans are coy on their plans
The Ohio March for Life, an annual and usually well attended statehouse event, is scheduled for Friday, which could explain the sudden rush of GOP attention on the anti-abortion agenda.
Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman declined to say Wednesday whether he expects the House will pass any of the abortion bills this year. He said he and the rest of his caucus will “consider” anything.
However, unprompted, he defended what he called the “24-hour rule,” arguing it doesn’t violate the constitution. He said the right to abortion, like freedom of speech or the right to own guns, is not absolute.
“The 24-hour rule, is that prohibiting somebody from obtaining an abortion? Probably not,” he said. “I mean, what if it was 12 hours? What if it was one hour?”
The 24-hour waiting requirement is technically on the books in Ohio, though Franklin County Judge David Young issued a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement last August in light of the new amendment.
A 24-hour delay requires two appointments, he wrote, which means more health care costs, wait time, time-off from work, childcare, etc. It risks medical or emotional harm. And it burdens doctors by preventing them from administering care in their patients’ best interests for no medically beneficial reason. He hasn’t yet issued a final ruling in the case, which is set for trial.
House Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn, the ranking House Democrat, said Wednesday that Republicans are ignoring the clear will of the voters to give women the right to choose whether to receive an abortion.
“The legislature, the [Republican majority] at least, seems to be sticking their fingers in their ears and their hands over their eyes and saying, ‘We don’t hear it, we don’t see it, we want to do our extreme agenda, regardless of what the people of Ohio clearly said they wanted,’” Isaacsohn said.
Other abortion restrictions proposed
Ohio already has a 24-hour “reflection period” law on the books, as Rep. Mike Odioso, a House Republican, put it last week. But he and GOP Rep. Josh Williams, who’s running for Congress in northwest Ohio, introduced a similar concept that they said was more specifically tailored around Ohio’s new constitution.
Odioso said they want to make sure women are “fully informed” in their decision.
Congressional Republicans recently passed legislation blocking Medicaid funds from flowing to Planned Parenthood for one year. Medicaid is a publicly funded health insurance for the poor, which covers roughly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients. This applies to both abortion, and non-abortion care including birth control or STI treatment.
Republican Reps. Jean Schmidt and Adam Mathews proposed on Tuesday legislation to make that cut permanent.
“Nothing in this bill interferes with a woman’s ability to exercise their constitutional right,” Schmidt said.
The most extreme of all proposals in the mix comes from Reps. Levi Dean and Johnathan Newman. Their legislation vows to protect the lives of “preborn persons” by giving them the same legal protections as infants, children or adults. This could extend to prosecutions against mothers who receive abortions, or physicians who perform them.
Some lawmakers – including Dean and a cosponsor of his bill – have signaled defiance against the new constitutional order since the day after it passed. Four Republicans signed a joint letter at the time insisting that lawmakers, not voters, write the laws.
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” they wrote. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make.”
Baby Olivia
Rep. Melanie Miller, a House Republican from Ashland County who also leads an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center, held a press conference Tuesday to introduce her “Baby Olivia” bill.
It would require schools to annually show a three-minute video produced by Live Action, an anti-abortion advocacy organization, to all students in the 3rd through 12th grade each year.
The film describes the pregnancy cycle, narrating politically charged moments in the pregnancy cycle, including “the moment that life begins,” emergence of the heartbeat, and fetal viability. Planned Parenthood says the Baby Olivia video is science fiction, “explicitly to be used to indoctrinate young people” in school.
Miller declined to directly answer whether Republicans are reviving abortion as a driving issue. Flanked by longtime anti-abortion lobbyists with Right to Life and the Center for Christian Virtue, said her legislation has nothing to do with abortion.
“This legislation does not deal with abortion at all,” she said. “This deals with the science of human development and teaching that.”