This is all part of a greater plan financed by the far right and the Evangelical Christian and Evangelical Catholics to take over the State Legislatures with right wing Conservative Governors and State Senators and Assemblymen. This I am sad to say they have accomplished, 30 states in this country are now are now in their control. Couple this with what M. McConnell did over the last two years of the Obama Presidency, denying Federal Judgeships and a Supreme court nomination. A total of 140 vacant Federal Judge seats were left for trump to fill. He is doing this from a list given to him from the conservative far right. He has already stuck a far right conservative judge on the Supreme court. What this is about is getting Judges in place to overturn Roe v Wade. What this is about is getting all birth control banned in the USA. What this is about is taking control of women's lives giving them no choice. The Religious right says they are having their rights taken away. That is garbage! What they are doing and saying is that their way is the only way. If you don't agree too bad. They do not care about your rights. According to them you have none. That is why the right will never leave trump because he will give them what they want. God help us all!
19
Democrats love to avoid the real questions surrounding the abortion debate focusing only on the mom. I want to ask you a series of questions and I want you to be honest with each answer.
1) Do you agree or disagree with the truths found in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
2) 5 months before you were born... who was your mother pregnant with?
3) If you agree with 1) and have enough common sense to answer 2) correctly then... when did our Creator endow you with your inalienable right to life? Conception? Birth? 15 weeks? 24 weeks?
4) Should our laws protect the inalienable right to life for all individual, innocent, living human beings?
Because that last description is both accurate and important when speaking of the unborn. They are individuals (If I harvested a cell from the fetus your mom was carrying 5 moths before you were born, who on this earth would it match? Not your mom... you.). They are living, not able to sustain on their own, then again neither is a newborn infant, but short of medical procedure extracting them from their natural environment 98+% will go on to live normal separate human lives. They are innocent, you can't point to a single law, criminal or civil that they have broken. And human, give the fetal DNA to any scientist and ask what species it is. The question is should anyone be allowed to kill it just because it's inconvenient?
2
If only these people, and the lawmakers who support them, were one-tenth as concerned about the born children as they are about the "unborn children" what a wonderful world it would be.
18
I wonder what those who oppose abortion think will happen should they get their wish and have it outlawed?
Do they think that everything will magically be sunshine and candy, there will be no more rape, incest, catastrophic birth defects and everyone will walk hand in hand singing "Kumb by Ya"?
Or maybe they won't care about the dirty back street butchers and the desperate and dying women. Maybe they really are like their stereotype: they don't care about women. Maybe somewhere deep down in the ugly recesses of their souls, they think this is what they deserve.
I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but since the same people who put forward antiabortion bills consistently vote against legislation that would help all those children, I really have to wonder. I really, really do.
17
No one is trying to force anyone to have an abortion. This is all about right wing religion trying to combine with government to force their views on others. It is church plus state.
Meanwhile, the right supports war with all of its indiscriminate murders and guns and assault weapons in the hands of the mentally disturbed. How sad all of this has become.
14
How about some “common sense restrictions” on abortion? Right, I didn’t think so.
1
Why can’t people mind their own business? Why can’t “Believers” stop injecting themselves in the relationship others have with their God?
How arrogant they are to speak and act for God.
8
Ultra-right-wing, Ultra-fundamentalist religious fanatics at work. They must be stopped.
Clue: IF YOU WANT TO PRESERVE YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS, NEVER, EVER VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN TO ANY OFFICE.
12
Hasn't anyone heard of contraception?
1
How is this not solely a personal choice? Why should anyone else care aside from the two individuals involved? If you are morally against having an abortion then don't ever have one. simple enough. One should not be telling others how to behave based on THEIR religious beliefs.
10
For a party that claims to want as little governmental interference in our lives, the GOP goes all out to become intimately involved in Women's lives. Women are fully capable of functioning 100% as citizens in America. We do not need your help GOP.
Those who do not support abortion need not have one. For all others there should be safe, legal and affordable options. Let's promote reproductive health including birth control in all forms so that abortions are the last and rare choice.
Even if abortion is a religious issue for some, please be aware that not all women share the same religion. We are fully capable of making responsible decisions for ourselves.
14
Unlike the editorial board, none of whom was ever a fetus, I WAS myself once a fetus. For a more recent example, so was my grandson.
So I amunlikely to see eye to eye with you.
In a world where we mourn the death of the last white male rhino, it is odd indeed to be so casual about the death of human fetuses. But that is how we are in these progressive days.
At the same time I do think that the Ohio bill is quite impractical and will allow pro-abortion people to paint us pro-lifers as cruel people who hate women.
Let us see what happens next. Most likely the bill will not become law, even in Ohio, even for a moment. These legislators do not realize that in this modern world, only rhinos matter. Humans do not.
1
It's insidious that this bill comes to the fore at the same time high school and younger students and their families are pleading for protection from guns after decades of mass slaughter of innocents by individuals who can get high-powered rifles, handguns and all the ammunition they want because it's their Second Amendment right. That pretty much says it all.
7
So if a man really really wants to have a baby all he has to do is find any woman he wants and impregnate her if he is able. Doesn't matter if by force or not apparently, of if he goes to jail for assault that kid is gonna be born. He owns her if he is successful .
Or how about this, a woman has a fetus developing outside the womb and to give birth is a death sentence for her. But she is forced to go ahead, maybe that's murder too. Who gets blamed for her death?
Pregnancy is and always has been somewhat dangerous to women and things can and do go wrong. If a woman miscarries is that now going to be her fault and she can be charged with murder?
It's all absurd and the people who are looking at this so absolutely have no compassion for actual living human beings.
18
"How's that for pro-life?" says it all. The people who claim to be "pro-life" are often the least "pro-life." I note they are more likely to be pro-gun and support capital punishment.
If men had to bear children, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
19
Until men can get pregnant, they have absolutely no right to make laws about a woman's pregnancy. Neither does any woman have the right to inflict her beliefs on another woman. The first amendment prevents us from becoming a theocracy, doesn't it? Privacy between a patient and doctor should be sacrosanct. Finally, if we do not have sovereignty over our own bodies, we do not own ourselves. Isn't slavery illegal in this country?
13
Kasich is considering a presidential run in 2020. I can't see him signing this bill.
2
Anyone who wants to ban abortions should have their entire working wages garnished for the rest of their life, and all of their wealth and property seized, to pay for (1) the support, including free healthcare and college educations, of ALL children; (2) compensation to EVERY woman who is physically, emotionally, or psychologically harmed by being forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy (or to her family if she dies as a result). You want to force women to be unwilling incubators? PAY FOR IT.
24
In areas where women are least respected, unplanned and unwanted pregnancies are most common. And, it is in those areas that opposition to abortion is strongest. Interesting.
18
Abortion is an issue that will always strongly polarise people. People are entitled to there views, formed on the basis of religion, emotion, pragmatism, social beliefs.
We have been through the same debates in Australia, as have many other countries. America has highly politicised the debate. Wiser politicians in other countries have not done so, largely in the interests of social cohesion and harmony.
There is no way that either side of the debate will ever win over the other. Authorition legislation will also fail.
1
Will Gov. Kasick veto it?
" Every sperm is sacred ". Every Woman, not so much.
27
The anti-abortion psychosis is utterly irrational. Whether someone else has a child is no business of anyone but the parents. There is no legal right for any third party to object to an abortion. There is no sane argument for telling people they must have, or not have, kids.
Yet, like all America's other institutionalized insanities, it's big business. Like guns, it's an ongoing sale of ideology, employing thousands of people.
If your religion, or whatever, tells you abortion is wrong, that's your business. So mind your own business, and leave it at that.
16
Where are all those pro-lifers, life-is-sacred blasphemers when it comes to doing away with capital punishment or standing up to unjust wars and the killing of innocent people? Why don't they put as much energy into justice reform and how we treat those in prisons? Where are they when the story is about access to healthcare for all? Why are they so opposed to gun control?
Ah, the hypocrisy of it all! Humans never cease to amaze and confound. And, they continue to breed!
16
"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary ... is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."
Roe v. Wade
It was refreshing to read the humility of the Supreme Court regarding their approach to the difficulty of the underlying question. The respectful and complex balancing of privacy and potentiality of life, as performed by the Court in Roe v. Wade, is profound.
It contrast, it is disappointing, and frightening, to see the arrogance and lack of respect of some of Ohio's lawmakers. They obviously believe they now have the answer to the question the masters of medicine, philosophy, and theology still disagree on. They have chosen, instead of keeping the balance set by the Court in Wade and in others, to throw the scales at their constituents.
I hope the remaining lawmakers and the Governor of that state will be less humble than our Court in their rebuke of this bill.
9
It isn't quite right to say that Roe "made abortion legal up to the point of fetal viability..." This suggests that the Roe decision forbids abortions after viability. In fact, the decision prohibits no abortions whatsoever.
In a way, Roe is not a decision about abortion. It is about what the states, and the federal government, may legislate about abortion, consistent with the Constitution.
Essentially, Roe says that legislation may forbid abortion (subject to protecting maternal health), but only after viability. That's substantially different from Roe prohibiting abortion after viability.
This is a significant difference that is not merely verbal in nature. This is because, for example, Roe also allows states to have no law at all about abortion, if they want to.
Thus, Roe would be consistent with post-viability abortions in those states. That would not be possible if Roe forbade such abortions.
At least one state that I know of has no abortion restrictions at all: Vermont.
According to FindLaw, "[i]t is legal for an abortion to be performed in Vermont at any stage of pregnancy for any reason or for no reason."
5
Getting an abortion---buying a gun. Both are private, personal matters. Both are controversial, both can be life saving or threatening. Both need to be done safely. But MOST IMPORTANT, both are legal, and are protected by the courts, and judged as constitutional. Can you IMAGINE if buying a gun was as hard as getting an abortion? Having to drive hours to the one shop that sells them, then have to go through a crowd of shamers before reaching the door, then having to see pictures of gun violence victims, then have to wait at least another day to make you decision. All that want to protect one thing and not another is a hypocrite.
16
My bottom line is pretty simple - If you don't want to have an abortion procedure there is literally nobody forcing you to do so.
Otherwise, it's not your decision to choose for me, nor my decision to choose for you.
I don't comprehend why some people can't comprehend this simple aspect of our constitution.
10
All miscarriages must be investigated for potential liability for the pregnancy's end. There could be manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter charges.
2
I really wish The New York Times would get out of the habit of using the terms "pro-life", and "anti-abortion", as in this article. The movement is more accurately defined as "pro-fetal rights" or "anti-reproductive rights" (not as catchy, I know). Words matter, and letting the anti-choice (another accurate label) define themselves as pro-life, where life is defined so narrowly, or anti -abortion (when virtually no-one is really pro-abortion, in the sense that they would push for more and more abortions) cedes an important point in this debate. Some religions declare that life begins at conception - it makes sense for followers of that religion to adhere to that definition. For anyone else, the state has defined a fetus's viability outside the womb as the moment when 'personhood' must necessarily be conferred. Women must be allowed to make decisions related to their own bodies, a priori their personhood supercedes that of a not-yet-person (from a legal standard) residing in the womb. The imposition of the religious beliefs of the few on the many is something that was anathema to our founding fathers and is not supported by our constitution or our laws. This is the only way for people of different faiths and beliefs to be part of the same society. Please NYTimes, start using more accurate phrases in this debate!
8
I think it is "forced birth" vs pro women's health choices"
4
It's horrifying that anti-abortion activists have so much political power. It's a sign that misogyny has become an epidemic in this country, and it has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with malignant male attitudes towards women that have no place in the 21st century!
13
Dear GOP: You don't OWN me, or MY body. Or, have you forgotten that Slavery was abolished ??? War, AGAIN ???
10
If all these Catholics and evangelicals object to abortion, then ought not have one. However, no one born without a uterus has the right to make that decision for anyone or force their antediluvian belief on the world.
12
Most Catholics don't adhere to doctrine when it comes to reproductive rights...unless you're of the Rick Santorum ilk. Mike Pence abandoned Catholicism because it wasn't restrictive enough for him.
1
If people take the time to do the research and look at the facts, in no way are any of the anti-choice policies "pro life." It is a term of ego, not reality, and I will not grant it to these groups.
4
The religious right are not only attacking abortion but birth control. We went from 3 billion in 1963 to 6 billion in 1999. We have an ever growing population which is a major factor in most environment issues. The right seems intent of overpopulating and polluting the planet.
12
Legislation based on extreme ideological rigidity, ignorance and lack of understanding about what actually happens to human beings does not get enacted in the 21st century.
At both extremes of the political spectrum, we have people who imagine they can design a Utopia. At the extreme far-right, we have busybodies who insist that no abortion can ever be medically justified. At the extreme far-left, we have zealots who insist that no woman has ever regretted an abortion, and that no one -- not doctors, not family members, not friends -- should ever be allowed to encourage a woman in distress about an unexpected pregnancy to consider alternatives to aborting a perfectly healthy life.
We need to stop voting for ignoramuses, and extremists.
2
The people behind these repressive efforts are not Pro-Life. They are Pro-Sperm. They are opposed to anything (contraception, abortion, saying NO) that would thwart semen.
16
So if you’re 9 and raped by your stepfather and it’s ascertained that carrying to term will literally kill both mother and child? Or if you have 3 children under age 10 and your 4th pregnancy is so high risk it I’ll end in the mother’s death? Or if the fetus is determined not-viable and likely to die and to possibly live with sever birth defects? What then? Prison? You know what 56 hours a week of skilled nursing for a special needs child costs per year? $202,000. Most times paid for by the government NOT private insurance.
17
I vote that if the GOP wants to end abortions then they must adopt and raise a child of any color that is available. If you aren't part of the solution then you are just causing trouble for others.
Birth control is not 100%. NOT having access to have abortions will bring children into this world that are not wanted. I just don't see the old, white GOP adopting children of other color to help out!
No one should be able to tell others that they must have a child. Do we need more unwanted people in this overpopulated world? NO!
THE GOP is at war with women. If you are member of the GOP you are dead to me.
14
All life is scared.
Somehow this seems to be the premise that everyone is supposed to accept as a given. Once you start the debate at that point, any counter argument, regardless of the hypocrisy inherent in actual practice, is moot. Over. Done. Let's all elect Mike Pence in 2024.
Wait. How about the death penalty? Killing for self protection. Killing to protect property. Oh yea. No problem. Innocent life. These are babies. Innocent life is sacred. Fixed it. I'm right, you are morally bankrupt. Debate over.
Then suddenly Donald Trump wakes up and Fox and Friends is doing a show about Buddhists. Some one put LSD in their coffee and Buddhism is just fantastic. Tweet. Tweet. Donald Trump is a Buddist. Jeff Sessions is out. The Dalai Lama is in. Two monks in Saffron ribes get appointed to the Supreme Court.
All life is scared becomes the law of the land.
38 states pass laws restricting the sale of Steak, Burgers and Ribs. In Texas, Pizza can only comes as a large veggie lover. Fly swatters are boycotted as the tool of Satan. Fundementalist Buddists in congress pass legislation to cut funding to McDonalds. A Presidential order prohibits federal funds being used to pay for Chicken McNuggets. All 50 states outlaw veal.
This has nothing to do with Religion, say supporters. All life IS sacred!
Ridiculous? Yup.
2
This is slavery, plan and simple. If you can't control your body you are a slave. Really disturbing that Republicans in Ohio support the slavery of women in the USA.
16
Yes, their strategy is to obtain change from unelected Supreme Court justices who hold lifetime appointments. Conservatives often complain about judges who "legislate from the bench" but for decades have depended on courts to enact policies which go against the views of the voters. Their response in this case would be it is a moral issue, so the views of voters are irrelevant. All policies require moral choices. That's why we have elected officials.
Case in point of legislating from the bench: Since the 1800s, America's Constitutional lawyers as well as judges agreed that the 2nd Amendment provided no private right to bear arms. This was settled law to both conservatives and liberals. Then, after 25 years of court packing and "impact litigation," a single 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court opinion 10 years ago wiped out yearly 200 years of precedent.
6
As a public service to Times readers & commenters, here is a precise of Ohio legislator Ron Hood's personal beliefs, which he is trying to force upon the rest of us You may note some inherent conflicts and inconsistencies in his positions. Near as the public record show, Mr. Hood is a full-time lawmaker in Columbus.
Life:
Excerpt: "I am proud to be 100% pro-life and always have been. I have exercised my convictions by working to move forward legislative efforts to protect life from the moment of fertilization."
Second Amendment
Excerpt: "As your Representative, I guarantee I will not support any law that will infringe upon the rights of legal, law-abiding Ohioans to own or use firearms to protect themselves, their families or their property."
Family Values
Excerpt: "As a husband and father of young children I am very concerned about government's intrusion into our families. The traditional family is the root of a stable society, and my pledge to you is that I will work to protect traditional marriage and the rights of the traditional family in all aspects of my job as your State Representative."
7
This all traces back to the unholy alliance of Trump and evangelical voters. He only became anti-abortion when he needed votes. They would not be backing him except that he has promised them SC judges.
For Trump, women are really no concern. It's obvious both from his personal life and from his politics. They are just pawns, in this case to be used for votes.
8
At least, as part of this conversation, and to be accurate, the Conservatives on the Right side should stop calling themselves 'pro life'. There is far too much tacit or outright approval to be found there for the death penalty and war, providing of course, that God is on our side. For the religious conservatives to claim that all life to them is in fact, precious, is a lie and hypocrisy of the highest order . Admit to yourselves that the preciousness of a life is a moving target for you and depends upon a variety of circumstances. The conservative and religious right are anti-abortion to be sure, but pro-life, not so much.
9
Abortion is a demand problem. Making it illegal will not make it go away.
One example is Prohibition. We know how well that worked.
Another example is cocaine. We killed Pablo Escobar in 1993. More cocaine than ever.
As many comments have said, to solve abortion, get women birth control and stop unwanted pregnancies.
7
Legal, safe abortions or haphazard back-alley abortions, is the choice. Why those who favor the back-alley abortions that kill women are called "pro-life" mystifies me.
11
It's simple really. They're all for us for the first nine months and after that.. well we're on our own.
7
The Republic of Ireland had a recent event in which doctors in hospital did not abort a non-viable fetus because the doctors were afraid of criminal prosecution. Their patient, who would have been the mother, died of sepsis. It led to widespread condemnation of the laws governing abortion in Ireland.
At present, humans can only reproduce sexually and sexual reproduction means that there is a certainty that some fetuses will have devastating errors from the combination of the male and female DNA that render them unviable. In some of those instances an unviable fetus, if not aborted, will lead to the death of the woman carrying that fetus.
How many women can one condemn to death and still call one-self "pro-life"?
I doubt that there are many women who would refuse an abortion if they were carrying a fetus that could not survive after birth and knew that carrying that fetus made it highly likely they would also die.
In fact, I challenge the "Pro-Life" movement to produce even one.
As many have stated, the Ohio tragedy is that perhaps none making this law will ever suffer its consequences because if they knew that it was likely one of them would need to deal with this act of barbarity, the law would never pass
10
Women, you hold the cards here. Paul Ryan says he did his part, but I wonder if his wife feels the same way. As long as men run the country, women will be at their mercy. No one forces a woman to terminate a pregnancy, so no one should force a woman to carry to term, it is literally that simple. Therefore I see several options available to women in this country, one is to leave Ohio today and never return. The second is to vote and insist that your female friends vote in their best interests not allow some male centric propaganda to drive your votes. Third is to just refuse to have sex with men.
Trump and his power hungry crew are trying to take over the world by destroying the constitution and removing any rights that women or non white heterosexual males might believe they are entitled to. Women need to run for state office in these crazy territories or hit road for places unknown. This bill is insanity.
11
Republicans at the state and federal level are doing their utmost to transform America into an actual theocracy. The hypocrisy and ulterior motives are stunning.
14
What never is raised in this discussion is what about the man who contributed to that pregnancy? Unless there is a staggering number of immaculate conceptions, pregnancy happens between a man and a woman. So let's consider changing the abortion legislation to addressing consequences for the man involved in the pregnancy. With DNA testing available, this can be done. I wonder how many men responsible for the pregnancies in question would be so adamant about this issue.
10
What a great idea P.Gorman, why don't we hold all parties, moms and dads, responsible to care for and raise the children they conceive. And there are other applications for that available DNA testing. It has to do with the concept of a woman's right to choose what to do with her body. Before any tissue is removed from a woman, let's run a DNA test on the tissue we are considering removing. And if we find it doesn't match her DNA we will hold her and the father responsible for caring for and protecting and raising that individual, innocent living human being they conceived.
US citizenship is given upon the birth of a child, and not conception. If GOP wants to ban all abortion based on their belief that a ball of cells or fetus is human being, they should change the law granting citizenship upopn conception. How is this going play in GOP lands?
7
'Under the bill, an “unborn human” would be considered a person under state criminal homicide statutes.'
Does this mean if a mother dies giving birth to a child she was forced to carry to term that the child could be charged with manslaughter?
10
Yes Dean they could... as long as you can legally show, as you have to in all other homicide prosecutions, action or intent on behalf of the baby that led to the death. And if you can show legal competence on the part of the baby, as you have to in other homicide prosecutions, that they have the mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions.
On the other hand, if the mother chooses not to carry the child to term, and chooses to abort it obviously ending it's life, does she normally do this as an intentional action with enough mental capacity to understand that her actions will end the life of her unborn child?
The Republican plan is to enslave black and brown women, and women of low income. If they have more children than they can afford to support and are forced to go on what is left of public assistance with whatever work requirement, then they are de facto forced into slavery. The Republicans can call it anything they like, but to me this is slavery.
9
There is a simple way to rationalize this problem with abortion.
Since it requires both a male and a female to create what is called the "unborn human", it should be the responsibility and desire of both future parents of the "unborn human" that a child be born.
It seems reasonable that unless the male who fertilizing the egg can attest that he also desires the the birth of the gestating human and accepts responsibility to do so, there is no responsibility for the woman to carry to term.
If the male can play a significant role creating this "unborn human", he should not be absolved of the responsibility to assume fatherhood after the woman gives birth.
If a pregnant woman cannot be provided with a legal statement from the male of the "unborn human" provided at the date of conception or of pregnancy confirmation, she should be allowed to obtain a fully legal abortion whenever medically allowable. If the woman desires to keep the pregnancy and bear the child, that should allowed even lacking a male fatherhood statement.
1
Gun prohibitionists and abortion prohibitionists are cut from the same cloth. Reason escapes them.
8
Stop referring to this movement as pro-life. They are pro-forced birth.
17
How and why are we still dealing with this now? This is a sadistic law.
9
So, how is this different than gun control? Liberals are very choosy on who’s life matters when it’s convenient for them.
3
Yeah, we know all about this kind of thing, in Latin America they are already doing it . You will have such nice cases of ten- year- olds dying in chilbirth because their father has raped them . And you will have women imprisoned because they have miscarried. And all such nice things that these nice people that call themselves prolife want.
How much longer till you Get Rid of Trump? Howh much further into the darkness are you going to let him take you?
11
The problem with "getting rid" of Trump is who follows him. VP Mike Pence, An even darker alternative. I am 62 years old & I have never been more frightened for my country's future.
5
This bill isn’t just about banning abortions in the state of Ohio and its legislature. Its about stirring up the conservative GOP voters to vote in November
7
What outrageous cynicism, to try to use Ohio’s women as pawns in a partisan political scheme. I, for one, have notified both of my state represenatives that we simply will not stand for it. (Sen. Stephanie Kunze’s office promptly responded that she does not support the proposed bill.)
7
If a Supreme Court vacancy occurs, Democrats must ensure we wait until a Democrat wins the presidency so that "the people can decide."
4
If early term abortion were actually murder, the pro-lifers would be morally correct, analogous to the abolitionists of the 19th century. And most pro-lifers simply assume that the destruction of any human fetus is murder. Whenever pressed on the question of whether or not a fetus is a "person" pro-lifers never discuss the actual attributes of an early term fetus. If they did, they would find that they are clearly wrong- an early term fetus bears little resemblance to a human person. I think their minds are closed because they believe that God put a "soul" inside the embryo. They should be encouraged (required?) to make two columns listing the personhood and non-personhood features of a one-month old fetus (no God nonsense allowed!) I don't think they'll seriously imagine reading any bedtime stories to the newly formed fetus.
2
If you want to live in the Middle Ages move to Ohio. Even if the new law were not unconstitutional, which it is, women desiring abortions could simply go to more enlightened states or other countries. I suppose the law will give the GOPers the chance to say, "see, we tried but the chips were stacked against us".
3
Progressives are told to be tolerant of the poor people in Ohio whose communities have been hollowed out by globalization, deinsdustrialization, the brain drain to the cities, and the opioid epidemic. But my reservoir of sympathy for the good folks of Ohio who support these repressive tactics has run dry. Their rage and spite knows no bounds, and they are willfully blind to the cruelty they would inflict in the name of culture wars and their identity. At some point, with their guns and their hate, Ohioans get what they deserve.
1
When will so-called "pro-life" advocates stand up for the life of the woman, especially in cases of rape, incest and fetal inviability? When will they take steps to make sure that every fetus they insist must be born will be supported by society if the parents cannot support them? When will they help overwhelmed mothers and fathers who may abuse children because they are not able to care for them?
Why does a state take the time and waste taxpayer money to pass a law it knows is unconstitutional?
I have plenty of questions, but no answers. It smacks of hubris to me.
4
There can be no greater tyranny than a government that can force its citizens to die to bear a child they don't want and can't take care of. On top of that, the reality is that there are large numbers of kids in foster care. Many more are abused, neglected, or simply lacking in necessities due to poverty. If anything, we should be helping women who don't want and can't care for children to not become pregnant in the first place. But doing that would mean valuing womens lives. Sad to say, that's not coming to America in my lifetime. Make no mistake - these bills have nothing whatsoever to do with "life" and everything to do with government tyranny over women.
10
"But the same day he signed a bill banning abortion at 20 weeks" To put that into context, only 7 countries (USA, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Canada, Netherlands and Singapore) allow elective abortion after 20 weeks. Other than these 7 countries, almost all of the rest of the 61 countries that allow abortion "without restriction to reason" have gestational limits of 12 weeks. The fact that so many Americans think that a 20 week limit is extreme shows how out of touch they are with mainstream global opinion. Allowing abortions out to 20 weeks is deemed extreme by an overwhelming amount of the globe.
Edward - you are mixing stats. There's a difference between banning all abortion after 20 weeks - and banning ELECTIVE abortion after 20 weeks.
No problem with reasonable restrictions on abortions as we get later in term, but to say NO abortions - even if the pregnancy will kill the mother and the fetus will be born dead - that is the problem.
2
"Under the bill, an “unborn human” would be considered a person under state criminal homicide statutes."
Since the unborn is a human being, why would we not consider it a person?
1
The terms "person" and "human being" are not synonyms. Sure, most human beings are persons, and most persons are human beings. But not always. Think of a venn diagram. Remember those from elementary school?
The concept of "personhood" is a separate legal and philosophical concept than simply determining what species you are.
2
I think the Republicans won't be happy until they can bring back the Magdalene Laundries.
8
They were in Ireland, but your point is spot on!
3
The Magdalene Laundries were in Ireland, but there were so-called 'Magdalene programs" in convents and orphanages throughout the NE USA. The last of them started shutting down in the mid-1960's. Some of them were hellholes.
1
Neither American democracy nor we citizens will be safe until the modern Republican party has been extinguished.
11
Is there anyone who can rid me of this meddlesome issue?
No. America, you have to deal with this. Good luck and Godspeed. But hint: research into fetal transplants. Discover the science of how to transfer an unwanted pregnancy to a surrogate.
At that point the ball is in the court of the pro-life side. If they do not wish to see abortion,l they can volunteer to carry the unwanted pregnancies to term.
As near as I can tell, that is the best and most pointed solution. Let the pro-life constituency put their own uteruses where their mouth is.
Unless... the issue is not really about the fetus, but about control?
12
It is so obvious when other elements of our society could be improved FOR the life of a BORN, AMERICAN child - affordable, high-quality preschool; available, quality health care for children and pregnant women; accessible and paid parental leave; equal access to an excellent education - that this is about punishing and prohibiting women from a antiquated, narrow religious position.
If those opposed to abortion were really interested in infants, their state policies would speak for the youngest of children.
5
Why are Republicans so intent on trying to control what women do with their bodies?
It's perverse.
8
My guess is that the overlap between the pro-life (really pro-birth) wing of the GOP and the pro-gun wing is substantial. Of course, the sanctimonious holier than thou pr-life people are happy to tell a woman what to do with their bodies but will not countenance any restrictions on their ability to purchase weapons of war.
But then again hypocrisy amongst the religious fanatics of the pro-life movement is par for the course. Just look at that their fevered embrace of Trump, a thrice married serial philanderer who loves unprotected sex with porn stars and wants to sleep with his own daughter.
And to think with all that the Christians of the GOP wonder why their churches are empty and the fastest growing religion in America is none.
6
If, hypothetically, that bill were ever passed, lots of jobs will be created to build lots more prisons and to staff them. Better forget THE WALL and redirect the money for building them, and to provide services for all those children who will be born into poverty. Those prisons will be filled with mothers, teachers, sisters, daughters, nurses, doctors, bankers, hair stylists, biologists, cleaners, physicists, waitresses, artists, journalists, chefs, clerks, technicians, firefighters, policewomen, programmers, actresses, secretaries, government officials, hospital administrators, authors, historians, zoologists, airport personnel.......so, the country will need more immigrants! And more guns to protect everyone! Let's further divide the country........Keep going, Republicans......what else can you come up with to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN????????
4
Republicans will try anything stop woman from using the rights given to them by the Supreme Court ! The anti abortion fanatics will do everything they can including violence against woman to gey their way ,
2
There was a time when many hospitals required women seeking tubal ligation to have their husbands permission. He had to co-sign the consent. Some hospitals refused to perform tubals on women having unplanned C-sections. She would have to return for a separate surgical procedure. Seemingly because women were incapable of making reproductive decisions for themselves. At this same time men were not required to have their wives permission or co-signature for a vasectomy. I remember this during the 1980s to the early 1990s. Can anyone speak to later decades.
3
Just how many abortions have these self-righteous politicians personally paid for? Certainly not the POTUS and his ilk.
4
Rep. Scott Desjarlais, Republican Tennessee. Six affairs and two coerced abortions and still got re-elected. After all he said he was sorry and asked God’s forgiveness. If I remember correctly he also used it in a tv ad to support why he should be re-elected.
4
Language matters. I am pro-choice and pro-life and pro-birth control. Those who want to outlaw abortion are anti-choice, anti-birth control, anti-women and anti-life. Their have expended enormous effort trying to limit and ultimately outlaw abortion. But those same groups haven't spent a dime promoting legislation to insure the welfare of woman forced to bear unwanted children and the children that result. Quite the opposite, they work to reduce and eliminate the current inadequate safety net in this country, to reduce availability of birth control and eliminate sex education.
6
I’m pro-life and pro-woman because I am one and a democrat. Unless the liberals realize that woman who are pro-life can also be democrats, we’ll continue to lose elections.
How can you be pro-woman, and support laws that say a woman carrying a terminal fetus, who will die or be severely hurt by continuing to carry the pregnancy should die?
3
Republicans want The Handmaid's Tale.
Always have. Always will.
13
Republicans love the fetus...., but hate the child. In their zeal to punish the young, pregnant woman, or in some cases really a child herself, they would endanger that woman's life and in many cases cause difficulties and problems that would force that young mother into a life of poverty. Their own children, however, are almost certainly never faced with this problem. A quick 'vacation' to some other country, or access to a pill at a pharmacy far enough away from their homes to protect themselves, and the problem is solved. Wasn't there just the case of a virulently anti-abortion Republican who was caught trying to convince a woman he was having an 'affair' with to have an abortion? Hypocrisy..., thy name is Republican!
15
The point is actually government-forced childbearing as a punishment for the sin of human sexuality.
11
I fervently hope there will be an enormous campaign against Ron Hood and his fellow misogynists/religious extremists.
8
So called pro-life advocates are also anti-government when government provides assistance to people who have bigger families than they can support. They do not want people to sacrifice an unborn fetus to prevent worse impoverishment for the rest of the living children for who knows what kind of intentions. It's not to relieve misery and the cycle of poverty nor to reduce the dysfunctional families that produce more people who cost society more than they can contribute. In addition, an ancient problem for people is what they do when their resources can no longer support their populations, they starve, they resort to homicide, they fight others for their resources, and many people die violently. So I really do not understand the mentality.
4
I wonder how much the pro-life advocates are in favor of stricter gun laws. After all, almost 100 people in America get killed by gun violence on an average day.
That staggering number should bother everyone, including the pro-life folks. Most of the gun-violence victims should be just as innocent as unborn life. It seems that those two, abortions and death by gun violence, are treated as two sides of the same medal. Why?
3
You are 100% right. I have been scratching my head at the people stating republicans hate gun control but they are advocating killing the unborn. Both groups are so sure they’re right but they can’t see they’re using the same argument.
When there are 100% effective contraceptives for both men and women; when those contraceptives are 100% free to everyone; when there's universal education for everyone, at early age, on sexuality and contraception (including human needs, and human nature); when incest and rape no longer exist; when there is a guarantee that all humans, and all human-made devices and medications, are infallible of error....
Since it's unlikely any of these will ever be true, abortion will always be a societal need, and should continue to be a private, medical choice.
7
The Dems should mirror this with legislation to ban gun sales across the board. No more gun sales. Anywhere. Any time. Period.
6
For Republicans and other conservatives birth control, abortions and other sexual matters are NOT about morality but ARE about the power of white, Christian, heterosexual males over anyone else.
Pro-life? Not after 270 days...
Morality? Seriously?
The label, pro-choice, aptly and completely, describes the pro-choice movement’s raison d’être. Pro-choice advocates for a woman’s right to make her own decision, her own choice. It does not force anything on anyone. No-choice (aka “pro-life”) is just that, the imposition of opinion by force.
Simply put, no-choice's concern and advocacy seldom, if ever, encompass the quality of life after birth for parents and/or children, just the quantity.
8
Does the Republican bill include free coat hangers for women who need an abortion to avoid severe health problems? Does it include lifelong care for severely deformed babies or babies with life-threatening health issues? Does it provide nursing care for beleaguered families with children with complex health/mental issues? Does it provide for poor mothers with nowhere to turn?
I thought not.
6
Republicans such as Kasich are anti-abortion until their daughter or mistress wants one.
8
A ban on abortion will work as well as the ban on alcohol or bans on drugs.
3
“The Handmaid’s Tale” was a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual. I fear we as a society are moving closer to becoming the fictional Republic of Gilead.
7
Ohio should also put forth a bill to ban Viagra prescriptions in the state.
8
In 2012, Donald Trump had consensual affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, 2 young women in their 20s, without using 'protection.'
Trump's a hypocrite. I wish all the women who've had abortions from sexual relationships with Trump would come forward.
Don't believe they aren't out there.
Assume they were paid off and then threatened, as that is how Trump 'deals with' women he has sex with who become 'problems' for him.
Trump may have even had them threatened with physical violence as they parked their cars.
What a hypocrite and disgusting liar Donald Trump is.
9
People should be able to follow their own conscience and not have others religious beliefs dictate their decision on whether to carry a child to term or not . Perhaps they should try to walk in their shoes , when an agonizing and controversial decision is made , until then , there is still free will , and there is still the separation of church and state in this country .
7
If they pass this what are they going to the women who leave the state to get a legal abortion elsewhere? Of course, the so called pro-lifers don’t care about the babies once they arrive nor would they help with pre-natal costs of the unwanted pregnancy. And, once they get their way if his law passes and Kasich is stupid enough to sign it, they will come after birth control because the pro-lifers want to dictate your sex life and how many children you have. Then I suppose after that they will come after surgical sterilization because, after all, all sex must come only with the opportunity of creation.
Of course if one of their daughters embarrasses them and becomes pregnant out of wedlock, they will quickly want an abortion even if they have to go on a ‘family vacation’ and go out of state to get one. Hypocrites one and all.
13
The right-wing, activist Supreme Court Justices may very well overturn Roe v. Wade and perhaps even Griswold v. Conn., which found a law prohibiting contraception unconstitutional and recognized a right to privacy that became the basis for Roe. That Conn. had a law prohibiting contraception before 1965 seems shocking now, but there are right-wingers who would still welcome such a law.
We have four extreme, right-wing Justices and another right-winger who often joins them. Five right-wing Justices rewrote the 2nd Amendment to find an individual right to bear arms in 2008, ignoring precedent and half the language of the amendment. Those justices from that decision are still on the Court, with the exception of Scalia, who has been replaced by a younger, more extreme Justice. There is a chance that the Court will gain another Scalia clone before a case challenging Roe reaches the USSC.
Extreme right-wing, activist Justices have also recently given us money as speech and corporations as people with religious rights. They also made sure that Bush won over Gore. They overturned most of the punitive damages accessed by a Jury against Exxon for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and they voided the heart of the Voter Rights Act of 1965 to lead the way for Republican voter suppression laws. They are, in effect, an extension of the extreme, right-wing, modern Republican Party. They have already benefited the patrons of Republican politicians, and they will continue to do so.
20
When as a nation are we going to get rid of these white, middle-aged, uninformed, hyper religious, misogynist males feverishly focused on denying full health care and full citizenship to the women in this country -- our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters?
Are women's right to vote their next target.
We all know how phony and hypocritical this is. These same men have no interest in promoting legislation that would help the babies (or their mothers) with health care, food, housing or education when needed once they are born. That would be socialism and would allow these mothers to live on the dole and avoid working for a living -- so easy given the plethora of jobs paying a generous minimum wage. (I'm kidding.)
Of course, if it were to become an issue affecting a member of their families, no problem. Simply pay to have them taken to a state or country where abortion is legal.
17
Ron Hood and his wife have two children. Vice President Pence and his wife have two children. I would love to see a survey of how many children rabid pro-life couples have, especially those in which one spouse holds elected office. If such people worry so much about unborn children, how come they haven't adopted many children? After all, there are many, many children awaiting adoption in every state.
15
I think it is also an attempt to gin up the base to create enthusiasm for the November elections. It worked in 2004 when anti gay marriage propositions were placed on the ballots in a dozen states, including Ohio.
BTW, I wonder how many liberals know their favorite Republican, John Kasich, is the governor of Ohio.
5
To define the people pushing this bill as "anti-abortion" is giving them too much credit. Sure, they don't like abortion, but who does? Certainly not women who have to make that sad choice.
And choice is what it's all about. The correct term for people who want to ban abortion is "anti-choice." They want the government to essentially appropriate women's bodies as if they were public property - in effect, it's the same as the government's power to imprison people.
When it comes to railing against Big Government, nobody shrieks louder than conservatives, yet it's conservatives who, when it comes to choice, prove themselves the most hypocritical.
16
I wonder how many times DJT has paid for a woman he had an affair with to have an abortion.
20
If any of these women came forward, they would be doing the ultimate patriotic act for the women (and men) of this country.
2
If abortion is a mortal sin, then why not let people commit the sin and burn forever in hell. They are choosing this life over the afterlife that was promised by Jesus. God would never allow a the soul of an innocent to be aborted. God knows that the mother will abort the child, so he will reserve the soul for a mother that can pass his moral test. Anti-abortionist lack faith in the Lord's plan and arrogantly attempt to use the feeble tool that is man's law to subvert the hand of God and attempt to save those that are beyond redemption!
9
These people would ban abortions and at the same time cut subsidies for children including education and medical coverage. What's a mother to do? She didn't get herself pregnant. There are a lot of FAKE "good" people out there. Let them be in a situation and be torn apart by something they couldn't avoid.
14
The law of the land is to keep abortion legal and safe; and, hopefully, rare, if we are smart enough to promote ways to prevent a pregnancy, if unwanted, from the start. One thing is for sure, and that is that we men have no business telling women what to do with their body (and soul), particularly when we, men, are co-responsible, a clear sign of our hypocrisy. Now, if legislators have nothing much to do and are looking for work (odd, but possible), get yourself up and moving, and seek an end to your incompetence and try doing the menial jobs others are doing for your comfort, at least for a dose of appreciation and humility. Any questions?
3
The reason to make abortion rare is that it is better to avoid the need for an invasive medical procedure.
It has nothing to do with the doctrine of the morality police that abortion is "wrong."
3
Whether fetuses have rights or not does not depend on them being a person, but on whether they are defined to be a person (such as by a legislature). If corporations, which are not even animate, are persons, why not fetuses?
I've never been in a position where I wanted an abortion, but thanks to Roe v Wade I always though there would be options for me if I needed them.
What an extraordinary amount of money is being spending on something that has already been through the Supreme Court!
Any politician who wants to waste time and money on this issue is risking my vote and will definitely get an earful!
14
Small government? Just small enough to fit into our bedrooms, bathrooms, and doctor offices I guess.
21
One only needs to research to horror of what is happening to women in central & south america where abortion bans are in place (championed by US evangelicals). Women jailed for 30-40 years because of a miscarriage, and doctors & hospital staff threatened with imprisonment if they dare to argue against a court rulling.
22
It is ironic that these lawmakers usually support in the death penalty. They support stand-your-ground laws allowing someone to kill another for a PERCEIVED threat to their lives. Most women who have abortions do so because of an ACTUAL threat to their lives. They restrict access to birth control though it has been demonstrated that this decreases abortions. If they were serious about decreasing abortion then birth control would be free.
25
Not a chance, because they will be concerned that someone, somewhere is having fun.
3
Sad, but true.
1
Kansas, South Dakota, Texas, Ohio. State governments create these bills knowing that eventually, they will fail. They will scrap them before they pass committee. Some bits make it through and create more obstacles for women. But there’s a greater message than just banning abortion: these states are showing that they CAN, that they WILL, and that they are working around the clock to not simply ban abortion or complicate access, but to show that Roe v. Wade and the abortion debate isn’t as rock solid as we think it is.
Question: Where’s all the pro-choice legislation? Why aren’t liberals and Dems working around the clock to protect a woman’s right to chose the same way conservatives and Republicans are working to advance pro-life legislation?
22
The ultimate pro-choice legislation is already in place, in Roe vs. Wade.
I don't know what other legislation would be needed.
3
The Pro-Choice stand is often described as helping the mother. I suggest it is also for the baby. I believe it is better for a child to be loved and wanted, than born into this world ignored or abused. I would rather a fetus be terminated than a living child be mistreated. I believe in pro-choice so that every baby who is born can thrive with loving parents (biological or adopted) and good care.
25
And to add to your conclusion:
"Bills like the Ohio total abortion ban seem outrageous, because they are. But if there’s any lesson to learn from them, it’s that the Republican anti-abortion strategy doesn’t stop with one extreme bill. If it’s up to them, they won’t stop until it’s impossible for many or all women in America to make their own choices about whether to access a safe, popular and common form of health care." And what's more, telling American women that they are neither fit to nor up to the task of governing their own persons as they see fit according to their own moral codes and sense of health and wellness.
Shame on today's GOP!
21
Given that it is becoming more and more difficult in many states to get birth control pills or other forms of birth control, all of which would decrease the chances of unwanted pregnancies, it is ironic that the same opposition to birth control are the same ones who are against abortion. Fewer unwanted pregnancies fewer abortions. Guess they cannot connect the dots.
19
They do connect the dots.
Their goal is subjugation. Their method is sadism.
They preach sexual abstinence, so that a pregnancy is a punishment for "promiscuity."
Withholding contraception insures that women will get pregnant, and banning abortion insures that they will be punished.
10
If you don't like abortion, don't have one
if you don't like abortion, make contraception available to all and education to all
make the fathers equally responsible for getting a women pregnant
provide adequate prenatal care and infant care for babies and mothers
make abortion, safe, rare and legal
32
So far I have not found anywhere in science or the Bible where a fertilized egg is a human being.
33
As far as I can find, there is no science and no where in the Bible that says a fertilized egg is human being.
12
Criminalizing abortion will simply drive it underground and across borders. I wonder how many abortion tourists will come to Canada to have them? And would a woman be arrested as soon as she went back to the United States once having one? Will there be an underground railroad? We accepted your fleeing slaves, your bootleggers and your Vietnam objectors. We would accept the women you have made flee through your own devices.
24
Not just Canada but Mexico, too.
The right-wing extremists were no doubt hoping to sneak this one (in the dark of night, so to speak) through while the nation was distracted by the ongoing chaos in the "administration" of their beloved Great Leader.
Simply disgusting!
Thanks for shining the light of news into yet another dark recess of slime, where these extremist zealots live, operate, and seek to regress our nation to the Dark Ages.
19
Notice how conservatives only care about abortion during election years?
19
I’m sorry, but what on earth is happening in your country? Where is compassion? Who has decided that of all the problems facing your country, rampant gun violence seeming the worst to the rest of the world, forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to full term will somehow make America great again?
30
This is how Republicans make America Great Again, kill kids in our schools with lack of gun control, punish women who get pregnant for lack of birth control, take away women's rights all in the name of religion!
4
The Pollyanna believe that all the women who get pregnant and don't get an abortion are helped by kind pro-life souls. That is so false if it wasn't such a serious subject I would laugh, but it is serious.
Sometimes women get pregnant because they didn't use birth control. Sometimes women get pregnant because their birth control didn't work. Sometimes women get pregnant because they were raped by their husband or a stranger or a friend.
Let's truly be pro-life and keep abortion safe and legal.
35
Would someone please advise Ohio State Representative Ron Hood and his Republican henchmen that the physical, psychological, and emotional abuse of women is over. We will not submit to this terrorism against us or our bodies. The national, state, and local Republican Party is going to pay a political price in November for this continued assault against women. Bank on it.
31
The abortion issue is complex and divisive, to put it mildly.
But regardless of how one feels about abortion, to term it "a safe, popular and common form of health care." is an outrageous mis-characterization. For shame, Editorial Board.
4
This is the New York Times, not the Evangelical Empty Mind.
Most of us here are educated and understand that "healthcare" refers to any medical procedure and that abortion is safe, common, and popular as attested to by the number of women who have them and its scarcity of ill effects.
13
You may object to legal abortions being referred to as “popular” but there is no doubt that it is safe for the woman - considerably safer than carrying the pregnancy to term and giving birth - and that it is common: almost one quarter of American women will have an abortion by age 45. The editorial board has done nothing wrong in acknowledging these realities.
6
Why?
It seems like you are responding to this fairly benign (and accurate) statement because of your own personal biases towards the procedure. An abortion performed by a medical provider in a legitimate environment is safe (safer than carrying a child!). It is popular/common. Where is your issue?
3
GOP members and red staters are basically just re-tread, deep South Confederates. They once had political intercourse with social conservatives and ever since, they are anti abortion-anti women-, at least as it affects women and members of the Democratic party-the new FDR party, not the old Confederacy party Since Nixon's southern strategy, all southern Confederates-regardless of where in the USA they now live, have switched to the GOP. Almost all will say ANYTHING and claim to be willing to do anything-until the horrors they demand impinge upon Southerners and Republicans. At that point their women run to NYC or LA for the finest care to obtain Abortions-their men know all the phone numbers of NARAL and every women's group their girl'friends will need. As in the 1960's, they have no reservations about passing gun control laws-as long as the people being apparently affected are black-as in the 60's california law pased and signed by Gov. Reagan-to end the right of Americans to carry unconcealed long guns-rifles. Not a peep was to be heard from the NRA because the Black Panthers were the target.
We are , once again, and have been since the Vietnam War,a society divided, now along any line the right-and often, members of the left, can cook up.
The expression Middle of the Road is now so objectionable, I wouldn't be surpired to see entire streets bombed or dug up at night, along their median lines, because some people got the message wrong
6
Ohio has a high rate of unintentional pregnancies. Many of those are teenagers. The ones promoting this idiotic course are also totally against all birth control. They willfully ignore the connection between their dogma and the results. For them is is just "principle" and they don't care one bit how many girls or women or unwanted children are harmed by such ignorant policies. Of course none of them have to carry the babies, and they certainly will not adopt all unwanted babies. They seem to think they can ignore a few million years of human evolution that ensures the sex drive is paramount. They want to promote "abstinence" but even their own kids do not practice that . No chance that will work. Ever. indeed, kids in "religious" families have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy!
In then end we have to recognize these people for what they are - psychopaths.
18
You're being charitable.
We have a President who has engaged in "unprotected" intercourse with women who are not his wife. He represents a political party that doesn't believe in helping single mothers or families that have too many children to support. Until men learn to keep their pants on, we women will have to make the decisions.
20
In a democracy, all of us are supposed to be equal -- regardless of gender, race, creed or sexual orientation ... and other qualities we need not discuss here. Those who do not want to abort a pregnancy can do so, without someone interfering or intervening in that decision. Why is that right not also honored when someone wants to end a pregnancy? Why do opponents believe that they have the right to interfere, intervene and otherwise impose their will on an equal citizen of this democracy?
The Supreme Court has decided that we all have the right to bear arms ... and we all have the right to an abortion. Why do people feel they have the right to defend to the death (those cold, cold hands that Heston made famous) one of those rights and equally feel it is their god-given duty to stop anyone from exercising the other? That's not democracy.
12
These are the same fools who want to ensure every one has a assault weapon there hands. These are the same GOP talking heads who said the students protesting on Saturday should be learning CPR. These GOP fail to understand that abortion is the law of the land and no matter how hard they try and they have been trying for forty years, it is going to be the law of the land. since the GOP doesn't want to fund education, and any public services i.e.daycare,health care etc. they are all like the president, no consequence for the man with unprotected sex but plenty for the woman . The governor of Ohio who pretends to be this logical adult in comparison to Trump who gets an endorsement from steroid user Arnold S. ex governor of California who had a child out of wedlock ,you want us to believe that these old white men care about women. Message to the GOP stay out of women's lives, your nothing but a destroyer of lives. you have done enough to the women in Africa with your destruction of health clinics
12
It fascinates me endlessly that republicans view women as breeders and not much else. What are they so afraid of?
19
How can people call themselves prolife while their states have death penalties? If you are fighting for a fetus why not fight for a full human been? Yes, maybe that person comitted a crime but Life should mean life for anyone no matter what.
Men since beginning of time always told women what they could or couldn't do. Not anymore!! We are on the 21st century and many men think we are still on the 19th century. We are moving FOWARD... Why can't they understand that?! Move on Ohio and leave us women alone... Give us universal health care if you are so concerned about us
9
Expect more of these attacks on women and family planning running up to 2018. With the passing of the tax cuts, it's the only thing the GOP can offer to its base.
15
ok, so the fight goes on...an ON.
why? what are abortion opponents fighting against? why are they so consumed with this particular issue?
and why are almost all of the abortion opponents Republicans?
does this have to do with particular religious beliefs, but not others? why do those beliefs get to be more important than others? is the argument about the sanctity of life, about murder?... or just a sure-fire vote getter for the Republican right?
should women be forced to bear children just so Republicans can keep control and political power?
who's the victim here?
11
Well well it appears my previous comment was not approved. Perhaps it contained medical facts about what can happen if a woman doesn’t have a textbook perfect pregnancy. Perhaps I was too descriptive of how a woman can die if not treated in a timely manner for incomplete miscarriage or an embryo implanting anywhere but the uterus - research septicemia. I didn’t even touch on medical emergencies such as preeclampsia and others. The types of events I listed occur frequently. As a medical professional (now retired) I witnessed them.
Perhaps because I called out Christian extremism seeping into our laws. Many girls and women will die if this bill is enacted.
There is most definitely a War on Women. A war seeking to control and dictate how women live their lives and care for their bodies. Abortion is a personal issue. Lawmakers do not belong in any woman’s uterus.
27
They did just approve my first remark.
Apologies
Whatever happened to separation of Church & State?
The American political landscape is truly terrifying in some areas.
16
RE: Fertility Clinics -- Will parents be criminally charged every time they ask remaining fertilized eggs to be destroyed? Will parents or clinics be forced to implant all fertilized eggs? If a fertilized egg is protected, when do these right-to-lifers start leaning on fertility clinics?
13
I've been wondering this for a long time. But it certainly proves the case that anti-abortion advocates are more about controlling women than about any sincere concern for fertilized eggs, which they claim are babies.
4
Yeah it's funny you never see these people waving signs outside of fertility clinics.
1
As an octogenarian I remember well reading in the daily newspaper regularly of some poor woman found in an alley who had hemorrhaged her life away; thus, the term, back alley butchers. Abortion is legal in this country as it should be. Why and how can these self-righteous lawmakers possibly know the situation and/or circumstances that brings a woman to a decision to terminate. These very same politicians also do everything possible to keep a poor child from having the opportunities for good health and a life with promise once it is born. How very hypocritical. Every child deserves to come into the world wanted and with the ability of their parent/s to care for them. I will fight to my last breath for right of all woman/men/families to have the right to a legal, safe, termination; a stranger in a suit does not know how a decision such as this comes about. How dare they think they know what's good for the mother and certainly they do no good for the child once it is here.
21
Keep at it women haters. Nothing says pro-life more than forcing a woman to put her life in danger because the fetus might be a male and all male life trumps all female life. Did I just say Trump?
14
If this bill had been law in the 1960's, I would be dead, my husband would have been a widower with a motherless toddler to raise, and my younger daughter and her two children would never have been born.
In what way can refusing to allow abortions EVEN TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER possibly described as "right to life"?
22
The resuscitation of this long settled issue feels like a desperate last ditch effort to reclaim republican voters, who are fleeing the party in droves as a consequence of the donald's idiocy and the party's wildly unpopular stances on racism, women's/immigrants'/disabled rights and especially gun control. The republican's literally have no other issues in their tool box with which to cajole voters back to the party.
15
The Ohio Republicans obviously know this law, if passed, will be challenged and might even make it to the Supreme Court. If their desired goal is to make abortion an issue left up to individual states it would backfire on anti-abortion people. More enlightened states will make abortion more available. It will drive the Bible thumpers in those sane states up a wall.
7
I won't be surprised when the anti-choice forces attempt legislation requiring women to be pregnant.
13
It's frustrating that we have more restrictions on women's bodies than guns. If men could have babies, this issue wouldn't even exist.
15
How about this:
Any man that fathers a child that a woman does not want, for any reason, will be neutered. That will greatly reduce unwanted pregnancies.
9
For starters I think we need to change the rhetoric. People who believe a woman should not have autonomy over her body as a full human being should not be allowed to get away with calling themselves “pro-life”! Call them what they are, extremists who are anti-democratic, anti-liberty, anti-equality and just plain old fashioned anti-woman misogynists who want to establish a theocracy in the USA where women are second class citizens without legal sexual or reproductive rights outside of the state, religious institutions or men in general. Scratch the surface of these men’s sanctimonious “pro-life morality” and you’ll find men who if they had it their way, women would all just be men’s sexual slaves. This is a classic master/ slave social order. Full stop.
9
The Handmaid’s Tale. Read it.
2
Under the bill, an “unborn human” would be considered a person under state criminal homicide statutes. Thus, a prosecutor could decide to charge a woman who ended a pregnancy with murder. In Ohio, murder is punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.
Why not also include in the bill that the "sperm donor" could be punished as an "accessory after the fact" unless he has proof that he was unaware that the woman he had intercource with might have an abortion.
5
Yeah, well...I guess we know what Ohio's Republicans think of women.
When is the next state election in Ohio ?
7
Making abortion illegal is never going to stop women from having abortions, so what's the Republican's ultimate goal here? Is it to imprison millions of ordinary teenage girls and women in the prime of their lives? What kind of insane society would ever propose that?
8
Even in the face of a fiercely conservative judiciary, the reality is Roe v. Wade is 45 years old and stands as a reasonable balance between the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life groups.
Taken to its extreme, if life begins at conception and artificial incubation becomes feasible, would a fertilized embryo have a right to be brought to term, regardless of the wishes of the "parents"?
Confidence in the Supreme Court rests in their ability to make decisions that bring society forward and bridge personal with collective rights. It would be unfathomable to me that the Supreme Court would be willing to create precedent that would fall on the losing side of history. America brought back the death penalty, so anything is possible, I guess we will have to wait and see.
3
Move beyond thinking that abortion is the main topic here. The overarching issue is about men wanting to control women's bodies as much as they can and any chance they can.
Misogyny is built into the Republican platform.
16
In a non-theocratic society, laws are not the beacons of morality. They are the beacons of order. Even a crime as dastardly as murder is enacted for the purpose of keeping the peace. As the wars and poverty-induced famines throughout history have shown, the law cares little for death by the hands of others.
Except, for some strange reason, for women with unborn fetuses.
We should no more be able to legislate abortions than we should be able to mandate the attendance of religious services. Yet here we are, again.
7
Women who vote republican are a mystery to me. Healthcare, daycare,
Education, jobs, infrastructure etc, etc
It is always a scenario where you are at their mercy with limited choices
Don’t let your girls grow up to be republican voters.
13
John Kasich has been marketing himself as a "moderate," but he proudly defunded Planned Parenthood in Ohio. He has contributed to Ohio's toxic atmosphere.
Moreover, Anti-abortion extremists perversely rail against contraception and sex education.
There is no placating them.
9
If you hate the idea of abortion, don't have one. As for prescribing actions for others, mind your own business.
8
It amazes me how much money the anti-abortion crowd is willing to spend to outlaw abortion, and punish women/doctors with murder charges. Instead of spending much less money on head start, public education, and to sure up the foster care/adoption system. Apparently only their God's wrath needs assistance from these Pharisees, and never their God's Mercy or Justice. What about the 'Time of Jubilee' that Jesus spoke about, or the sin of Usury, you can't get a peep out of these Pharisees concerning the things Jesus actually talked about, things that would help the poor women they are looking to punish.
7
Is Ohio heavily gerrymandered? Or is this a real reflection of its electorate? Either way, Ohio is a scary place, but if the latter is true, then it's a REALLY scary place.
As a previous commenter noted, young women thinking of attending college or moving there for any reason should be warned.
4
they left out one culpable party for prosecution, the impregnator, he certainly had a role in facilitating this problem.
12
I continue to wait for those Americans who consider themselves to be pro-life to accept that providing age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education to children and teens, and wide access to all methods of contraception are part of our society. Accept that women are full human beings, and are fully capable of making their own decisions about the very personal decision of whether, and when to become a parent.
This legislation is draconian, punitive and simply wrong.
9
I'm in favor of spaying and neutering congressional representatives--all least those who think they're entitled to make reproductive healthcare decisions for anyone else.
15
Remember, we are not really talking about “all” women since women with resources will be able to either have their doctor secretly do the procedure or will travel to a country that permits abortions. All anti-abortion laws are attacks on the ability of poor and middle-class women to get abortions or save their lives.
7
I am remembering a neighbor in grad school who was stalked and then violently raped by a man she did not know. She called 911; the hospital took her to a Catholic hospital, where they refused to do anything to protect her from pregnancy.
Even though biologically she couldn't actually have conceived yet. Her rapist's sperm was more sacred to that institution than the rest of her entire life as she'd planned and hoped for it. She had to find her own way, without her car, in the middle of the night in a town in Indiana, to get to the other hospital (thank goodness there was one) so that no child of hers would have to grow up bearing the burden of having come to be by violence, carrying the genes and perhaps face of a rapist.
As a side issue to the abortion discussion, Catholic hospitals should receive no governmental funding unless they agree to adhere to best medical practices.
17
(Correction, the ambulance took her to the hospital.)
I agree entirely.
1
I'm wondering if "the people" wouldn't be better served by these "legislators" if they spent more time making born peoples lives better. How many publicly funded million$ and man-hours of government employees time has been spent to promote their quasi-religious, dogmatic special interest pandering, instead of dealing with real world problems all of us face? I suspect if the public were confronted with the evidence of the amount of resources public officials waste, they would stop doing it.
4
Poor women. The GOP won't stop until it's impossible for poor women to get abortions. Wealthy women have long been able, and will always be able, to travel somewhere in the world where they can obtain any abortions they need. This program was always about poor women, and only poor women. So, we might wonder why that is so. What do poor children do, that makes the wealthy so anxious to compel the delivery of more of them? Servants, soldiers, low-level workers, prisoners, violent criminals: the GOP makes more money by having more of these. That explains it all.
6
Here's the difference between pro-life and pro-choice: pro-life people want to force everyone to not have an abortion. Pro-choice people aren't forcing anyone to have an abortion.
9
Like our other problems, the looming loss of abortion rights is entirely the fault of the voters. There are no victims here. As we know, the majority of white women voted to end abortion rights by electing Trump. Ohio women vote Republican. You get what you pay for, folks. Don't whine when the officials you elect do to you exactly what they promised to do. Until our electorate improves, we can't expect our political leaders to.
6
No, the majority of white women who voted, voted for Trump.
Most people did not vote at all, so the percent of white women who voted for Trump is small compared to all white women.
1
Plain spoken:
Older white men run State assemblies right now.
And it's not enough for them that women in their lives choose full-term pregnancy. They want to decide for all women.
Taken together as Senate and House within the Ohio State Assembly, the member is on average 52 years old, the membership is 78% male and 85% white. (5 men are black; 29 total women hold office, half the women are black).
The white male majority in OH must be refuted in committee or in full session.
And as they are pushed back, a push forward is needed in NY.
Shockingly, NY State penal code today says a woman having an abortion after 24 weeks is to be charged as a murderer; yes, the charge is homicide.
The bill to amend the code, The Reproductive Health Act, remains stuck in committee as NY IDC holds power and the overall NY Assembly is 72% male.
We're all awake now!
We know to run and vote-in candidates so that assemblies look like constituents.
Still most importantly Americans have to be clear in our demands as of today.
5
I'm not sure how sanctified human life is but it be interesting to pose a Constitutional swap, an amendment outlawing abortion while banning private ownership of firearms.
2
No trade is worth bargaining away women's autonomy.
1
If you really believe a two cell zygote is a human being, then all the rest follows and is completely consistent.
The mother seeking the abortion seeks to end a human life and is a willing accomplice every bit as a person who puts out a contract on another person is as guilty of murder as the hit man.
Of course, saying that making a woman carry a baby to term is tantamount to torture "according to the UN" is the sort of hyperbole which undermines credibility.
You don't need to resort to blather--the fact is for one radical Christian faction to be allowed to call non believers murderers is outrageous enough to convince most citizens who is right in this argument.
2
A woman wants to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. She has made the gut-wrenching decision to end the life of the fetus growing inside her. This cannot be allowed. What gives her the right?!
A madman with a gun wants to end the lives of strangers, perhaps school children, in a hail of rage and gunfire. The irrational, evil decision was the product of a warped mind and easily obtained high power firearms. Above all, his rights must be protected.
This is what passes for pro-life?
8
Why are the Republican's such hypocrites?
Republicans crave moral authority similar to Religious Dogma, the Taliban or Sharia law. They also believe in individual responsibility and State rights unless it might be a woman's right to chose.
The greater problem is that Republican's lack any concept on how to govern, their only concern is how to placate their base. So we have the Evangelists, Donors, Big Corporations, the NRA and white supremacists, these opinions dominate Republican policy. No other thoughts are necessary nor considered. Big Brother knows everything, better get used to the crumbs.
3
Republican's don't understand the term "hypocrite" — even though their Bible condemns hypocrisy not once, but 25 times.
To the GOP, whatever empowers them is justified: hypocrisy, lies, sadism, torture.
3
Like trump, these mostly male law makers find contraception morally objectionable for others yet do not feel they should wear protection - telling women they are not allowed to protect themselves from their recklessness. And when pregnancy does occur, these are the first men to call for an abortion. Shameful.
They want to take us to puritanical times just like the Mullahs in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
12
An abortion referendum is scheduled for May in Ireland. That country is moving forward while America no nothings return us to the 1950's when woman died from abortions performed by incompetent persons in unsterile conditions. Also, this is in keeping with the view of protect the unborn but we don't give a flip about them after they are born.
5
@WPLMMT
Thank you for this. I am pro-choice but I absolutely support your line of thinking/explanation of your perspective- as it is rooted in care for the babies and families post birth. For all the commenters talking about "the beauty of pro-choice" and placing the requirement on pro-lifers to solve all social problems prior to supporting anti-abortion policies, I very much disagree. Pro-choice may be beautiful in some instances- with freedom of "choice" and supportive services to make the choice of abortion- but those who make the choice to continue their pregnancies birth babies into the same exact world as those pro-life birth mothers. The pro-choice movement is just as complicit in not magically solving all social problems, so as to give women meaningful choices. In my experience many pro-choice individuals are down right flippant, degrading and chastising of girls and women who are mothers in less than ideal circumstances- and extremely arrogant about all their perfect choices. Abortion isn't a magic event- many women have multiple abortions and still have babies that derail their life, are still poor, still struggle. Whether we have abortion available or not, we need to address the social/political/cultural realities that harm women, children/families.
1
In MY experience, many gestational slavery advocates are downright flippant, degrading and chastising of girls and women who become pregnant with an unwanted pregnancy - and extremely arrogant about wanting to erase their sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights to ALL their choices, particularly the choice to conveniently obtain a safe and legal pregnancy termination.
Get this straight - if I am pregnant, and do not want to be, the ONLY remedy that is satisfactory to me is the ability to conveniently obtain a safe and legal pregnancy termination. Gestational slavery against my will is NOT an option, and is considered to be cruel and inhuman torture by the UN.
4
Pro-choice people tend to be liberal or even more to the Left, and support social services, good paying jobs backed by strong unions, and healthcare for all.
Unlike the Right.
Yours is a false equivalency.
3
You are talking about giving women NO choices. That is what is arrogant- pushing the beliefs you chose on others who do not share your beliefs.
Maybe others are tired of explaining to the "pro-life" folks who
would take away all choice from others. The cultural realities of no choice
are maternal death rates that match 3rd World countries. That is real harm.
3
I went to college in Ohio and used to think I would go back there to live. Not anymore. I am trying to help the people I know there to leave the state. It's a shame because there are some good things about Ohio. But the Republicans have ruined it.
Get out of Ohio while you can. It's going to become Gilead from The Handmaid's Tale.
11
There are many people who believe abortion is murder and feel practically obligated to do something about it, in accordance with their faith.
They are uncompromising and extreme. Expressing a philosophy that would better fit in some other religious society around the world, rather than a nation of secular laws like we are supposed to have here. Sadly, religious extremists here in the US are currently winning the battle against legal abortion.
5
No, they aren't.
Unconstitutional laws have been shot down, and a large majority of Americans — 70% — support Roe vs. Wade.
The anti-woman forces have won temporary victories, but currently only eight states have laws that violate Roe vs. Wade.
1
Will--We need freedom from THEIR religion. We will never stop fighting these extreme sexual voyeurs, and manipulators.
2
If there's one thing I've observed over the past 30 years it's that those who want to control women's reproductive rights are relentless. Those of us opposed to that must be equally so.
11
If only women could tuck teeny-tiny assault weapons into their uteri, maybe the Republicans would be interested in protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her body.
12
Let's be clear; this sort of toying with the minds of women and girls by way of threatening their liberty with legal overreach, over what is clearly decided law under the 14th Amendment, is highly stressful and damaging to those women & girls.
A new definition for murder, completely unfounded in English common law? You're suddenly a murderer who has to fear prosecution because you wish be rid of a nonviable fetus? This legal Russian roulette with women's lives is in fact misogynist terrorism - they are being terrorized by legislatures. It's completely without moral or ethical justification. Men should be extremely angry that these legislative cretins dare to try play mind games with their wives and daughters.
The application of fear upon a body of civilians for a political aim is the classic element of terrorists. This action by Ohio and other states is both damnable and sickly ironic given that they presume to be the owners of high moral values.
7
As we discuss the pros and cons of this legislation, let's use the correct terminology: the words "pro-life" and "anti-abortion" are misnomers; they are not accurate. The correct terms are pro-choice and anti-choice. Those of us who are pro-choice are also anti-abortion. And we are also pro-life - i.e. we support policies that help the least among us survive and thrive.
Labels matter!
7
I agree with your correct terminology.
However, it's wrong to imply that all pro-choice people are "anti-abortion."
I have no objections at all to abortion. It's a safe, effective procedure that many women want and/or need.
I'm sure my views are shared by every woman who has had an abortion, since by definition they could hardly have been against it.
1
My point in saying that pro-choice people are also (largely) anti-abortion is that no one WANTS/PREFERS to undergo an abortion. We would like to see the numbers of abortions decrease. Access to safe, effective birth control would be a start.
And, fyi, your views are NOT shared by every woman who has had an abortion. I have had two - I had them because there was no other option. I AM anti-abortion in that my preference would certainly have been to not have one. I did not WANT one. I understand your semantics issue - but I, as one woman who has had two abortions, can state truthfully that I am pro-choice but anti-abortion.
1
What happens when science brings viability down to 20 weeks or maybe 18 weeks? Do we say it was fine to kill these babies in 2018, but not in 2035?
Medical science has found ways to save more premature babies.
But it cannot force premature development of a fetus into a baby.
In all known history, only a handful of babies, out of billions, have survived a birth at less than 23 weeks.
2
They are not babies, they are embryos or fetuses. Why do they have greater value than a living breathing functioning woman?
We will never get rid of abortions. Never. Ever. Women will go to the ends of the earth to not have a child they don't want. They will have their reasons, and no one is going to change their minds. No law is going to change their minds. Abortions won't be safe. Or legal. You know, like guns must be. But they will be there. As they always have been. Legal or not.
Really, shame on us for putting up with these monsters who want to control the lives of women.
8
Astoundingly poor choice of words, editors!Abortion is not "popular" health care. It is a necessary medical procedure, as long as birth control methods are imperfect and women bear the costs of pregnancy.
And what statement are you making with that illustration? What is your intent? To perpetuate stereotypes? To shame brown women and old white men? To pour oil on a tired debate? Where are your editorial values, minds, biases? This is pathetic, infuriating, disturbing and insulting on many levels. An apology to readers is due.
2
"Popular" means that millions of women have had abortions.
That's not a value judgment, but a fact.
2
They're pro-life? I am too. They ban abortions; we'll ban guns.
4
So what happens to the man who gets the woman pregnant who wants and abortion? Isn’t he an accessory to the crime?
5
Issues of race, abortion and guns may bring our representative democracy down.
1
If someone would just figure out how to perform an abortion with a gun, abortion would become a protected and sanctified procedure.
7
If you eat eggs, what are you eating? A baby chick or, a gelatinous mass of protein? An egg, is an egg, is an egg!
1
This kind of extremism is just the thing to convince one of the doubtful justices that the right to abortion must be preserved.
2
this is not nice to say, but I wish the females in the families of the men who passed this bill, would have unintended pregnancies (and, of course, some caused by the members of the governing body who passed this stupid bill)
Plus, their daughters, their sons, all involved in pregnancies which need to be terminated or various reasons. They might see the situation differently.
1
As one pundit put it: politicians are against abortions until their girlfriend needs one.
10
Banning abortion is nothing more than trying to control poor women. These Republicans probably have paid their lovers, wives, daughters and sisters to get an abortion. These men have no right to tell a woman and a doctor what she can do with her body. They all belong in the middle East. I hope they move there and stay there.
6
Failure to enforce “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” on that pathetic body of oath-breakers has poisoned all of US politics.
6
To those who claim to believe that an embryo is a person with equal standing to any adult I ask them to respond to the following one-item Quiz:
You are in an infertility clinic. Why doesn’t matter. You smell smoke, open the door and see smoke filling the hallway and the fire alarm is blaring. As you rush towards the “Exit” sign, you hear a small child crying. You stop and open a door—in the room on your left is a small child crying and on your left a liquid nitrogen canister labeled “1000 frozen embryos.” You can pick up and carry one or the other, but not both. Do you pick up A The child or B the canister? Option C is neither and let them both perish.
The answer of course is “A” as the child is a person and the embryos are not. This drives the anti-abortionists nuts. Note, these people are not pro-life, just opposed to abortion. Under this proposed law, a woman with an ectopic pregnancy would be left to die. These are evil people.
10
Oh, when will religious nuts stop foisting their mythology on society? Religion is an anachronism. It has no place in modern decision making. The first amendment bans state religion and yet Christianity has pushed as though it is a state religion.
The first Amendment states:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
8
The non-politician President does nothing but pander, pander, pander to his base.
3
I have a theory that the Ohio Republican Party has surreptitiously been taken over by Muslim extremists, as evidenced by how they claim women should be treated. Sadly, these extremists know nothing about Islam. Let’s hope the women in Ohio (and men) rise up against these misguided religious radicals.
7
Fine. Make vasectomies a requirement for all men.
9
Actually not far from what should happen. Each one of these bills should get an amendment requiring all men who are unmarried men to use a condom during sex. That would kill off such laws.
1
So our so called president has unprotected sex with women who aren't his wife but would call for capitol punishment on women who then seek abortions for unwanted pregnancies..right,makes total sense.
5
More great stuff from the pro-gun/pro-death penalty/"pro-life" folks.
7
What next? Banning guns?
1
Poignant writing by the Editorial Board. If women are forbidden reproductive choice here, then wealthy Republican women will obtain the services off-shore.
In the 1960's I had a friend who impregnated his Pennsylvania girl friend. Her family flew her to Puerto Rico for an abortion.
I'll suggest to the Ohio legislature, why not also require displaying a red letter "A" on women who seek reproductive choice? Legal action is one thing, but social opprobrium really works.
Let's be clear about this. Like all such prohibitions, this cannot and will not affect anyone with money from obtaining a legal and safe abortion elsewhere. Just take a trip to Europe and poof problem solved. Just like grandma. It is only a return to the boot on the neck of poor people, to force the to have too many children, more than they can afford or want, to keep them yoked to awful jobs for too little money while those who game the system tut-tut their smug noses at "those people" who cannot seem to control their lustful urges. "Serves them right," they snigger in the safety of their country clubs as they buy their mistresses tickets to London for the weekend.
7
How convenient. Back when trump used no protection when playing around behind his wife's back with Playboy playmates and porn stars he is "very pro-choice". But for political, selfish and arrogant power-grabbing reasons he is willing to throw women under the Republican so called pro-life bus.
Imagine where we would be without SCOTUS and the Roe v Wade decision and with the anti-choice people in charge. Iran and Saudi Arabia come to mind. The world is cruel enough as it is without these people adding their cruelty to it.
Perhaps women should seek a bill that would castrate men for every unwanted pregnancy they caused and women are forced to bring to term. After all, sensible, rational contraception seems to be out of the question too for holier-than-thou men who like to impose themselves on women again and again.
8
This "logic" of stopping/banning all abortions is insane. Do you think it will work? They tried it with booze, and it didn't succeed. They tried it with the "War on Drugs", and all it did was fill up our prisons. And now we have a bigger drug crisis than we ever had. Does these Republicans worry about how to feed and clothe these children? What about schooling? transportation? Stopping abortions then Birth Control means there will be more children, and more adults in 2040. Are they planning on war to wipe out the abundance of population? Starving the masses? What is their end game.
And for all of you that are against abortion and birth control, are you willing to feed these children after they are born as they come begging to your door? What about the deformed children that have been born that were once aborted? Are you willing to expand food stamps (SNAP)? medicaid? custodial care? schools? roads? college funding?
It has been proven, where birth control is readily available abortions decrease. Don't you think that the world population is something that has gotten out of control?
2
Mr. Hood states on http://www.ronhood.com/,
"I have fought for the rights of all Ohioans to be relieved of the burdens of an ever-expanding government.”
Except if you have a uterus. And even if you have been raped.
How's that for compassion and family values?!
Mr. Hood asserts that the United States government has every right to govern each woman's body, and to be as cruel and misogynistic as he himself appears to be.
To Ron Hood, that's not a burden at all.
Vote him out.
6
And......it just keeps getting more bizarre by the day......
4
We must vote these awful people out of office. It takes two to procreate. Why are men not held responsible while women are punished and abused by those who should be representing them? Let’s hope time’s up for this boys club in November.
7
Pretty much confirms what I had long suspected....
Fundamentalist religions, of any kind, are devoid of morality.
7
The rabidness of the American anti-choice movement (they are only "pro" the life that exists pre-birth; after that, they could not care less) appears as crazy to other civilized countries as the insistence on having guns carried everywhere, at any time, by any human with hands. That's why the best sign I saw at the recent march was "I wish my uterus shot bullets so the government wouldn't regulate it".
3
They have their finger on the trigger of another Supreme Court Appointment and have been quietly filling federal judgeships, pushing the balance to the radical right. The impact of the 2016 election is going to outlive all of us and everything is on the table. This is another reason they're quiet about the incompetence in the WH.
5
I am pro life, but do not feel it the government place to tell women what to do with her body. I think abortion as medical reason and not just form of birth control is necessary evil. But, abortion is murder on demand in America.
Ohio better have a big piggy bank to pay each and all tof he children brought into the world if the state is not going to support abortion, including those w neurological and physical disabilities!
I am a single mother by choice -- that means I chose to bring a baby into the world w/o a dad via artificial insemination*. I've spent over $300,000 raising my precious 18 yr old son given the "village of support" we both have. (I now have the husband/dad and white picket fence)
I can't imagine how a 20 yr old single female will make it on her own as a single mom w/o money and a "village".
4
I'm guessing the next bill from the Ohio legislature to toss the concept of bodily autonomy out the window will be mandatory organ donations. After all, 20 people die every day waiting for organ donations.
So when Grandma passes with a healthy liver, the doctor can go help herself to that vital organ, regardless of Grandma's wishes or objections (even those based on a "sincerely held religious belief.")
But no, that would probably be too much, even for Ohio.
Of course, that leaves a corpse with more rights to bodily autonomy than a woman. Welcome to America.
1
Nothing short of Abortion on demand should be the law of the land throughout the United States.
Furthermore for women who choose to carry pregnancy to full term there should be comprehensive heath care and support for the mother and the infant throughout. This includes health care, safe and supportive shelter and support as well as education and child care for the mother and child.
If this country can afford anything this should be top priority.
Frankly nothing short of this is acceptable.
3
I have family members who are "pro-life", but when it came to their unwed high school daughter and her unplanned pregnancy abortion was considered. The well-to-do will always have access to safe abortions and that's all the "pro-lifers" care about.
10
It never fails to amaze me that the same people who oppose abortions are all for cutting benefits to children for housing, medical, food and other essential services. They are not "pro life" they are pro birth only. What is Ohio doing to ensure that the children in their state are fed and clothed and have food, housing, education and medical care?
9
Question for OH - will the state mandate the woman have an unwanted baby and then raise that child? Is OH bringing back orphanages or do they plan to sell the baby to the highest bidding couple that wants a baby?
Is OH considering bringing back prohibition to go along with the religious conservatives and their desire to decide what is right and wrong according to the bible, Koran, etc.? Most in this country do not like Sharia Law as it let's religion decide the laws, not the state. But in OH, I guess it depends on whether it's christian 'laws' from the bible?
I hope that the bill is killed by the courts, today.
5
Hypocrisy 101: If I believe in Jesus I do not support abortion nor do I take on any responsibility to adopt the unwanted and also cover all of the medical costs the mother requires both pre and post birth.
2
The Declaration of Independence states that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. - That to secure these rights governments are instituted among Men..."
It is self-evident that a human fetus is a living organism otherwise you would not have to kill it. It should also be self-evident that a human fetus is a human being and has the right to life and that the government exists to protect it. Also our government is not made up of only white men.
And on a side note since I'm sure the author is also pro gun control. If the logic of banning abortions does not prevent women from getting abortions, how is it logical that banning guns will somehow prevent people from obtaining guns?
The Declaration of Independence was about the injustices on the Colonies by the king of England.
It did not intend to deal with the unborn. It also skipped over slavery. If you're going to quote a source to back an argument you have to understand the context of that source.
It's not remotely self-evident that a fetus is a human being, any more than a sperm or an egg or a mole on your arm is a human being.
4
Steve, if it is self evident that a fetus is not a human being, then it is also self evident that an abortion does not kill.
Yes, it is logical that banning abortions does not prevent women from getting abortions. And it is logical that banning guns would not prevent people from obtaining them. However, it would be possible -- with some trouble -- to gather all guns and melt them down. But not easily possible to get rid of all uteruses.
2
I award you an "A" for Astounding Wit.
The abortion issue is about God - specifically, which people will get to play God and how much damage will they be able to do to the folks (women) who don't.
4
This is an anti-poor women bill, because rich women will always be able to buy abortions, without consequence.
6
It's not unconstitutional. That's a ridiculous thing to say. Abortion is murder.
So the millions of women who have had abortions are murderers? Good luck selling that one.
6
Alright then, let's remove that six-week-old fetus and grow it in the lab till it's old enough to be viable. Let's pay for the research that would somehow make that possible, let's pay for the process, let's pay for the healthcare, education, food, caretakers, and rent till each one of those fetuses is able to become a tax-paying citizen on their own. If you believe that that strongly then pay to save it.
But don't involuntarily commit someone else to doing something difficult and then lifelong just because you biologically can't.
4
Roe vs. Wade defines abortion as protected by a constitutional right to privacy.
Laws that are contrary to Roe are therefore by definition unconstitutional.
Abortion can be murder — of the woman, when it's done in a back alley with a coat hanger.
4
Women in America still have a choice--- either (1) take charge of their political fate and vote out republicans or (2) continue to be repressed.
15
Wow! So this "Pro-life" bill in Ohio , if it passes, would criminalize a woman, who has an abortion, to save her life. In turn a prosecutor in Ohio, could charge her with murder, of this "unborn human" then have the mother executed.
Sounds like a Pro-Life bill to me.
9
Once again reminded how embarassed I am to hail from Ohio. Restating the obvious: Ka$ux (Governor Kasich) is not a moderate republican. National main stream media frequently portrays him as such. Don't be fooled. Time to rally with pitchforks and Tiki Torches in Columbus. March on sisters!
9
Abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. Ever facet of the debate needs to have as it focal point the simple truth that abortion ends the life of an innocent human being
And what you fail to understand is that a fetus is incapable of sustaining life outside the womb. Such an antiquated thought.
5
Sigh.
A fetus is not a human being.
Can you anti-choicers never come up with an original, truthful argument?
2
IF... you want to ban abortions, fine, OK, then: provide universal health care to expectant mothers, newborns and children.
But NO. The Pro-Lifers want to protect the unborn fetus, but once its born:
no health care at all, let it and its mother suffer be sick and die prematurely.
4
No, it's not fine.
Unwanted pregnancy is a burden and a danger to a woman.
There is no circumstance that would justify prohibiting a woman's right to choose.
2
I'm appalled that this Bill would deny an abortion even in the case of a pregnancy threatening the woman's life. I mean--come on--you'd actually kill a mother(a fully living human being) just to try to save a fetus(not a full human yet)--and what if you kill both of them in the process? That would be the likely scenario and even if the baby somehow survived, you'd have a motherless child. And this would be somehow okay?
I'm not in favor of using abortions as routine birth control, but things happen (like rape, incest, and danger to the pregnant mother, either mentally or physically), and to forbid abortion in all cases is just plain shortsighted.
2
You make a good point.
But, regardless, it's none of your business if a woman chooses to use abortion as birth control.
7
Easy way to end the abortion controversy. Womem must be 100% repsonsible legally and financially for their kids. You can't pretend when you want to abort a baby that he or she has only a mother and not a father. But when child support is needed insist the baby has two parents. No more heads I win tails you loose.
Men who want visitation or joint custody can work out an arrangement with the mother. Arrangement might include support.
If you want the child that much then pay her costs for the pregnancy and then she can give you the baby to you right after birth and you can incur all the costs till adulthood of the child you wanted so badly. That includes sick days, taking the child of the doctor, going to all the school conferences and putting up with all the other responsibilities of being a single parent. If she does not want to have the baby it is her right to give it up one way or the other, after all, she is the one who carries the baby to term and sometimes that comes with health risks.
2
What about charges for the man who helped the woman get pregnant?
5
Classic Republican move: stop any pregnancy from ending, regardless of the circumstances (never mind women’s choice), then send them off to get shot in school. Or home. Or on the street. Apparently it’s only murder before children are born. Afterwards, it’s just their tough luck.
Vote in November, like our democracy and your children’s lives spend on it.
6
The bigger plan is to attack all contraception. Next stop, women in the workforce.
6
The Evangelical GOP Abortion Position
"...and furthermore it shall be the Duty of All American Women, married or not, to bear at least two (2) children to become Soldiers and Consumers. Ands further more when or if..."
1
Make no doubt about it - these extremists also want to make all birth control illegal. They view females as subhuman vessels only.
6
This may be part of the Republican Jobs Plan. Think for a moment about how many back-alley abortionist jobs this law would create.
1
These so called “pro life” legislators are nothing of the sort. They are pro fetus. That’s it. Many of these same anti choice people are also against birth control, which would make abortions less common, and want to cut back on Medicaid which would assure that the mother and her future child would be healthy. Moreover, few if any of theseo people have advocated for stronger gun control, such as stronger background checks and the banning of AR 15 assault weapons. 30,000 Americans are killed each year by guns, including children. But apparently those lives don’t matter as much as the 2nd amendment or a fetus. Once the baby is born, then if he is gunned down in his pre school, all he’ll get is thoughts and prayers. Such hypocrites!
5
A curious use of the word – “cruel” – to describe pregnancy. Showing pictures of what happens to a child during an abortion would demonstrate who suffers from “cruelty”.
Nothing in the constitution deals with abortion; I defy anyone to cite the provision which can even remotely be construed to address it. Roe is no more law than was Dred Scott; they’re both the inventions of evil minds which, in one case, consigned millions of people to slavery, in the other tens of millions to a gruesome – “cruel” – death. Abortion is NOT health care; it is NOT medicine. It’s killing, plain and simple, and to deny that is to deny science. And humanity.
Just yesterday, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to mourn 17 young lives. Here’s a bet that not one of those marchers for “our lives” would ever be caught ... dead at a March for Life. This paper is veritably soaked in tears for some young lives – and, incoherently, blames the tool the murderer used – yet can’t summon up even an ounce of compassion over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children every year, slaughtered at the hands of people sworn to “do no harm”. (In case they missed the point, the Oath makes it clear that abortion is harm.)
It’s curious, and sad, that which one has to believe to be a leftist. It’s perfectly OK to massacre our unborn children, but putting the murderer who took those 17 lives to death would be ... well, “cruel”. For the innocent, no mercy. For the patently guilty, no justice.
You will be pleased to know that fetuses/embryos don't suffer in abortion.
Your "confusion" will be resolved once you understand that forced birth is slavery.
Imagine your genitals being shredded open to deliver a baby you never wanted and tell me if you think that's cruel or not. Imagine someone deliberately trampling on your ability to determine whether you have a child, no matter what the ramifications are on your life. Imagine the total loss of control over your own future. Imagine what it would be like to be made sick every day for 9 months. Imagine what it would be like to know that someone else is controlling your physical body. Would it be cruel for me to tie you down and cut open your abdomen? If I did that it would be called aggravated assault and I would go to jail.
And no, I wouldn't be caught dead at a march for life, because I don't believe in forcing other women to gestate against their will. I'm a decent person.
8
I suggest that you read Roe vs. Wade.
The Supreme Court decided that the Constitution supports the right to privacy, by the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth amendments.
It furthermore decided that a person has that right to privacy in regard to his or her own person. That applies to a woman's right to control what goes on in her own body.
That means that there is a constitutional right to abortion.
1
Is Ohio vying to become the real life Republic of Gilead? They may as well start sewing the red cloaks there...
6
It is immoral to force women to have kids. Especially if they are not wanted. What chance do they have in life? Do Republicans provide childcare support? Well-funded public schools? Healthy lunch options? ...Unbelievable!!!
4
Any overturning of Roe v. Wade will be met with full throated protests that make the Women's March in DC look small in comparison. Just as with prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s there will be a vigorous bootleg trade in abortion drugs.
Overturning Roe v Wade will be short-lived, pyrrhic victory for the anti-abortion crusaders. What's the old saying? Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.
3
Mother Earth recognizes her home is over populated. Why doesn't the Republican party? Or do they just wait for events like War, Katrina, and Porto Rico to control populations?
2
Where do these people come from, and in which world do they live? In 2018?
2
Sexual intercourse while using contraception is entirely different from raising a child. The latter lasts longer and in most cases costs more.
The USA should make birth control and abortion available to all without interference from the post-menopausal and Viagra-addicted population and the sexually-ignorant religious zealots. Period.
6
Hear, hear!
John & Jerry,
what does being post-menopausal or using viagra have to do with abortion rights? They are the generation that fought for and won not just abortion rights but birth control rights. There was a time only married women had access to birth control IF their husbands permitted it. The men could have vasectomies without their wives consent or knowledge.
This reminds me of the pro gun extremists.... It's all or nothing.
3
So, "the Ohio bill would not only cut off access to the procedure, it would also open the door to criminal charges against both abortion providers and women seeking the procedure."
Why are the male "inseminators" exempt from punishment? Surely, the esteemed Ohio legislators know of the male's active contribution to a woman's pregnancy. The double standard at work here, together with the power imbalance, could be the focus of a new womens' movement. We could call it #himtoo.
5
Abortions will always happen and prosecution of those who have them and those who offer services is an old story including the fact that the last woman guillotined in France was an abortionist. If illegal, it will make little difference to the wealthy who can always travel to where it is on offer but it has dire consequence for the young women who become pregnant by rape and often poor. The males whoo are involved are of course are all blameless.
Why not punish women who have spontaneous abortions for being unable to hold fetuses and doctors who did not save them as criminals? There are vast number of miscarriages into the millions yearly, everywhere at every level of society. If fetuses are made legally full fledged human beings, they would have rights and would have to be given death certificates and then treated as if they had lived into old age. Why not blame their deity for the ill health and physical problems these women often suffer? Maybe the Christian self anointers can make baptism in utero possible and keep these fetuses safe from Limbo and the consequences of original sin.
Abortions is always evil in the view of the absurdists who claim moral right over others. We have been there before and we can return there again. Just ask Pence, that pathetic adorer of Trump and, presumably somewhere in the mix, Jesus.
4
Here come the right wing evangelicals trying to impose their right wing religion on all of us.
5
and they are afraid of sharia law...they seem to implement a similar set of rules against women in their evangelism! Dictating what other women should do and believe. Again, this should be a personal decision by the pregnant mother of wherther she wants to go through with it or not w/o feelings of guilt.
1
If anyone maintains there isn’t a War on Women they’re living in an alternative universe of their own making. Notice it is mainly men who sponsor these hateful bills. This isn’t about anything other than control and putting women in their place!
I am personally against abortion. However, it is not my right to impose my belief on other women. The more these control freaks pass ever more restrictive legislation the more and more I move to supporting absolutely NO restrictions on abortion. This is a very personal issue. A decision best left to the woman.
What this bill means is:
Control of your body is being hijacked to appease the Christain right. We are not under assault from Islamic sharia law. We are under assault from Christian sharia law.
If you have a tubal pregnancy you will die a cruel agonizing death due to sepsis. This happened in Ireland a few years ago.
If you have a partial miscarriage you could be denied a D&C to remove retained products of conception. This means you die from sepsis.
If you have a embryo implant outside the uterus and it torques (twists) you will die from sepsis if it is not removed.
If your fetus dies in utero and you don’t spontaneously go into labor and expel it they will have the right to deny you surgical removal of the dead fetus. You die of sepsis.
This is not an exhaustive list.
Pregnancy is dangerous. More women die from pregnancy related complications in the US than in any other society with advanced healthcare.
10
It doesn't sound to me like you are "against abortion."
On the contrary, you support abortion when it's appropriate — i.e., when a woman wants or needs it.
For which I commend you.
Jerry Engelbach,
It would have been more correct to say I would personally never have one.
Don't worry, ladies of the country cub. Simply hop a plane and in no time you'll be a friendlier state or country where abortions are legal.
Poor women? Tough.
5
One of your most blatant selective omissions of newsworthy information...
i.e. John Kasich's full position on abortion - as an individual and as governor...
You all think that turning the dial from fawning-flaming is within the bounds of editorializing, for your faves and foes...
Not true...
You're being as manipulative as any hacker out there, or the social media entity being used by said same hackers...
My take is that you simply want some GOP candidate to play Generals to Kamala's or Kirsten's Globetrotters...
What you all just (willfully) don't get is that the conflation of socialist wealth redistribution and liberal advocacy for larger government involvement with societal issues - no more justifiable that the Faustian bargain fiscal conservatives made with social conservatives...
The latter's had all kinds of unintended consequences - like Newt coming back as some Speaker Emeritus in 2004 and instigating the biggest unfunded health care expansion in history...With all sorts of sweeteners for the pharmas...
You all do realize this was all simply driven by Dubya's drive to not be a one-term president...
The slogan for this political swamp-creature might as well be...
"More warring, less taxing"
Our friendly Ohio Republican legislators want to make our country more like El Salvador, where abortion is completely outlawed and women can imprisoned even if they have a miscarriage.
Not kidding.
If you think the crazy judges who would issue such a sentence are only "over there" think again.
There are crazy, dogmatic, religious zealot American men (and some women) who will make this country into something you would not recognize.
Think about any woman you know, from your daughter to your mother to your sister.
Now read this:
Then, share it with ten other people.
Then, fight the evil Americans who would take away your rights.
There are evil Americans right in our midst.
Fight them.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/14/el-sa...
3
And then we will be back at having "back-alley" abortions as we had long ago. The more things change..........we never seem to learn from history.
2
Or could just outsource them back down to Mexico where everyone used to go to get one. But then the Right will complain that we’re sending all our jobs out of the country.
1
Women only came to Mexico for abortions because it was cheap here.
It has been just as legal as in the US, and with severe punishments for the women, hundreds of whom are now in jail for having them.
Until so called "pro-life" advocates promote birth control advice/techniques/pills to all, but especially young people I regard your beliefs as lies. You are NOT willing to end abortion.
1
ATTENTION: Ron Hood and Nino Vitale
When YOU can become pregnant as the result of a sexual assault then and only then will I and most women be interested in the fact that you may have an opinion about what should happen to our bodies.
3
Actually, even then their opinions would be irrelevant.
There are millions of anti-choice women, and their opinions are just as bad as those of anti-choice men.
The only thing one can say to others, regardless of their sex, is that if they don't like abortions they are free to not have them.
The death penalty is allowed on a federal level , but States can make the decision to implement it or not. This would be an equitable decision for abortion as well, but the Baby Killers want to be able to kill all babies at anytime they want.
Does not war end life? Why is it that Trump and his Republican partners in crime advocate war but are suddenly pro life when it comes to abortion and a woman's right to choose?
1
Politicians should start governing the United States instead of governing women's bodies.
6
It is called how to waste the states tax payers money on lawyers.
1
Conservatives involving government in the most intimate act? It's a non sequitur.
And it's men assuring women remain their chattel, like the Bible admonishes.
2
Will hospitals and doctors and distressed almost parents have to report miscarriages? This is how inhuman this legislation is. Republicans today recent government interference in the lives of American citizens when it comes to taxes, guns, and quality of life for other Americans (clean air, water, and land). Why do they think, having not gone to medical school, nor seminary, and nor a college of philosophy in ethics, they no better than a doctor? Why is it Republicans think their "Shira Law" supersedes doctor's advice? Do Republicans today in Ohio condone rape and incest? Do Republicans appreciate the difficult and traumatic decision most women make when choosing abortion? Abortion is not in the morning brushing your teeth. It is a hard decision. Republicans who insist upon a "No Abortion" policy portray themselves as self righteous thugs similar to the Iranian Red Guards, and display an ethic contrary to the Christian ethic of empathy and compassion.
2
In the play, Lysistrata, women banded together and withheld sex until the men stopped going to war. American women should do the same until the men stop messing with our minds and bodies.
How many times have we heard about these hypocrites insisting that their little tootsie on the side have an abortion to save themselves embarrassment?
Men have absolutely no business interfering in a woman's choice whether to have an abortion or not. Contributing a. little sperm doesn't a father make.
3
I am in my 60’s. I am tired of the abortion debate.
Regardless of Roe v Wade, Women and Men have always had a Choice.
Choose birth control.
Then we can move on from what has divided us for over 60 years.
The evangelical right has been taken over by the republicon party simply because of this one issue (and unfortunately with the help of their propaganda arm, Fox News).
Don’t be stupid, choose birth control and everyone wins.
birth control isn't a guarantee you won't get pregnant.
rape by the husband, a father, a brother, an uncle or stranger - has no birth control!!!
The problem here is that Trump doesn't care about anybody but himself. The only children (or fetuses) he may care about are his own children -- whom he has corroded to the point they have become as corrupted and detestable as he is. Trump will say anything if it benefits him and only him. He has no real truth at the core of his being because he has no core nor any honor.
As for abortion rights, free will is a deeply held belief to most evangelical Christians, until it comes to anything they disagree with, from the right to choose, to minority rights, gay rights, to anything, really, they don't like. Then they feel it is their mission -- indeed their mandate -- to impose their will upon the rest of us. And now Evangelicals have a man in the White House who panders to them, while committing atrocious, appalling and despicable acts that should be condemned. There is nothing Christian about this. Evangelicals zealously protect their free will, their right to choose, while denying anyone else our right to choose or our free will.
The ethics of aborting a viable fetus are certainly debatable. Forbidding abortion of a fertilized undifferentiated zygote is the imposition of one's religious views on others.
1
Let's amend this law so that any baby born to a woman in Ohio who wanted to terminate her pregnancy must immediately be adopted by a family of registered Republicans.
4
Certainly those Republicans in Ohio don't care about proper healthcare, housing, safe neighborhoods, excellent education, or an end to gun violence for all children. I know--I lived in Ohio for ten years.
1
I'm so sorry. I almost went to college in Ohio, but dodged a bullet and went to Bard in New York.
1
I'll have to relay this column to some of my friends in the Zetas and MS-13. Opportunity is knocking big time to get in the abortion business. I'm sure they can buy off a lot of Mexican and American doctors, along with a lot of police so the procedure will be available to anyone who wants it.
You characterization of an abortion as a "popular" form of health care is nothing more than the trivialization what should be a very serious decision made as a last resort. Dressing it up in your Orwellian double talk does not negate the fact that an abortion is killing something. The real debate should be on how and when that "something" is close enough to being human to deserve legal protection. But what do I know ? I don't have a uterus and thus am not entitled to even have an opinion on the subject. I voted for Hillary, but at least I know why a lot of people voted for Trump, and its not because they are all "deplorables". It is in part because they were sick of one sided, self righteous "I am right and only a barbarian would think otherwise" op- eds in papers like the NYT.
Our country is becoming more pro life with the invention of the sonogram machine. Now couples can see their fetus/baby on the screen in vivid detail with their tiny head, arms, legs, feet and hands. There is no more denying that it is a living human being. Why is it so difficult for pro choice/pro abortion people to accept this fact? They want to end human life in this barbaric act called abortion. This is atrocious and I am glad Ohio wants to put an end to this devastation.
So, in cases where a woman is the victim of rape, incest, or experiences a medical emergency while pregnant (meaning the fetus is not viable and is threatening the mother's life), that's too bad, so sad for the HUMAN BEING, you know, the woman carrier. You'll just sacrifice her--right? Will you also adopt or work to find a good home for the unwanted child--especially if said child is mentally and/or physically disabled. That costs lots of money, but then you probably think "extras" such as Medicaid, affordable health care, etc. are stuff you can get rid of in the meantime.
1
When did Ohio's legislature declare war on women and medicine?
2
I agreed with all of it, but I had a problem with the last sentence. I am not sure exactly what was meant by it and why it was added. Although I am always for Women's right to choose, I would never want abortions to be popular and common. Did you really mean that???
Abortion is a personal decision . So personal solutions including termination should always be available for the safety and sanity of the already living . As usual we argue over definitions . Life begins when... I get that technically life begins at conception . How about it began millions of years ago ? We individually should not be required to take on the weight of millions of years of human history .
It happened to me long ago and it hardly ever enters my mind today. Forced to have that child, I'm sure it would have been a disaster for me, the mother and humanity in general . If the idea is to make life better for everyone, abortion needs to remain legal in my view
11
Could a physician or patient really be prosecuted from this law? If either had a strongly held religious belief that life begins at quickening and ensoulment occurs at birth then it seems that their religious beliefs should be respected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
8
Missing in the abortion debate an honest discussion about why some women and families choose to end a pregnancy, especially one that will result in a special needs or disabled child: Economic reasons.
We as a society consider consistent access to healthcare a privilege and not a right. Children with disabilities have more and higher medical expenses.
It's also more likely that one parent will not be able to work outside the home because of the child's care needs. How many people raising a family can make it on one income?
Providing adequate housing for a child who needs medical equipment to survive may be an issue. If there are other children the prenant woman is a single parent, how will their lives be impacted?
I write as the sibling of a profoundly disabled brother. By the time we institutionalized him at age 10, my father said it was either institutionalize him, or wait 2 years and institutionalize my mother for depression and exhaustion.
Perhaps those who call women who choose abortion murderers should pay attention to the reasons WHY some women and families make that choice. Like access to healthcare and therapy. Avoiding bankruptcy. Making sure you can send your other children to college or otherwise prepare them for life.
And there's also this: It's their pregnancy. And your religious beliefs shouldn't mandate anyone's choices during that pregnancy with the force of law. Even if they choose to end a pregnancy for what you consider selfish reasons.
27
I agree with your last paragraph.
Women owe no one an explanation for their choice.
3
Two thoughts. First, we must do all we can to assure that all women have access to inexpensive and reliable birth control, something these legislators are reluctant to do because too many of them would like women to be what they were a century ago -- barefoot and pregnant. Second, we must do our best to elect more women to state legislatures.
26
GOP War Against Women.
They won't stop until they can control everything women do, everything women say, everything women think.
The Handmaid's Tale.
32
Wow, national Republican party must really want to be the party solely of Christian evangelicals, who want you to be forced to have a baby but then deny you any help in raising, feeding, educating your baby. Seriously, have you all lost your minds? Do you think women are just going to let you take away their rights to control what happens to their bodies? Personally, I suggest the Lysistrata offense. Women, no sleeping with your men until our full rights are protected, birth control is guaranteed and covered in all health insurance plans, sex education is K-12 and, in my dreams, men are told to sit down and shut up when it comes to women's bodies.
24
Unfortunately, so long as there are women who are willing to sleep with gross men like Trump, this type of thing will continue. According to both of his mistresses interviewed so far, he never used protection, so the best thing to happen now would be for someone to come forward with a receipt for the abortion(s) he's paid for so far. Maybe that would finally put an end to the love affair "Christians" seem to have for this guy.
3
Abortion is sad for many reasons.
To those who wish to deny women abortions, please develop a first-class safety net for the unwanted children born into struggle.
Do not adopt them and bring them into your self-righteous homes.
11
No one likes the thought of abortion, I believe we can all agree to that.
Our country's ideals are based on basic freedoms. Freedom is choice. No choice
no freedom.
10
Why do you believe that? That implies that there is an onus connected to abortion.
One "likes" it, like any medical procedure, in the sense that one is glad to have it when it is wanted or needed.
10
Potential silver lining -- the extremists who vote for this bill are held accountable and voted out of office in the midterms
14
These legislators are as out of touch on women's issues as they are about guns. Young people are going to get rid of them for both reasons. They cynically stir up the fanatics to get votes. They have to be removed from office- time is up.
15
If you provide services for "the born" this is a much stronger pro-life argument. And this includes every child born with any kind of malady, every kind. Will this be expensive? Yes. With this mean a tax increase? Yes. Is every life worth that? Yes. C'mon Ohio, take up that issue. Put your money where your mouth is.
5
No, that is not the solution, because it would still require women to go through with an unwanted pregnancy.
Abortion should not be outlawed.
15
I had a safe, medical abortion in 1981. The circumstances were...none of your business.
In the waiting room I suggested that we get down on the linoleum floor and thank God that we were in a medical facility and we didn't have to be scared.
There were about six of us. We all knelt down and thanked God.
I had a safe abortion. There was a doctor there, not some barber or quack. I will fight to the last breath in my body to make sure young women will be able to have the right to privacy that I had.
I have never regretted my decision. Never. Ever. Thank God.
370
My mother had a medically required abortion when I was 5. I didn’t realize what was going on at that time, but I have often been grateful for that option. 2 years after her procedure my father died of colon cancer and i would have become an orphan. While I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, sometimes the best options involve the hardest decisions.
9
I had a safe medical abortion in 1972. Had three children afterward. Never regretted any of these decisions.
6
It was easier for me to obtain my safe, medical abortion in 1997 than it is for women today. I am grateful every day that the option was available. And neither have I, not once, not ever, regretted my decision.
7
You think a fetus in a body has the same rights as a baby out of a body.
I don't agree.
If there is a balance needed it is to also balance the rights of the mother.
If only more of those who think like you wanted to care for babies as much as fetuses, we'd have a more humane health system, fewer unwanted pregnancies, and fewer abortions.
6
The fetus in a body actually has superior rights than the baby out of the body for pro-lifers.
For example, the fetus will die outside of the body without the mother's blood. Pro-lifers want to force the mother to supply the blood.
Once the baby is born, even if the baby will die without a transfusion of the mother's blood, the mother can refuse the transfusion. Haven't seen any calls by pro-lifers to mandate such blood donation.
They pro-lifers want the fetus to have special rights superior to anyone else's.
As usual, it's mostly Republicans, and mostly men who are at the political epicenter of this controversy involving a woman's right to choose when in this day and age, it should be abundantly clear just how outmoded this type of thinking is.
But in a way this is a fight that should be welcomed as it will ultimately serve in undermining the G.O.P., a party that has shown itself unable to accomplish much of anything besides reaching for more legislative power and then doing absolutely nothing with it.
Nothing for the good of the country anyway.
However if flaunting their their reckless disregard of for the American people and the U.S. Constitution is any part of their goal, then at least they have managed to attain that.
10
Pass a law requiring mandatory vasectomies. Problem solved.
26
Not at all.
A vasectomy is neither potentially life-threatening nor a burden for nine months.
1
Don't believe in sex before marriage? Don't have any. Don't believe in birth control? Don't use any. Don't believe in abortions? Don't have any.
But don't try telling the rest of us what to do with our lives and our bodies!
35
Just recently a girl of 14 died giving birth in Paraguay. She'd been raped by a 37-year-old man. Her body was not prepared for pregnancy. In 2015, a Paraguayan 10-year-old survived giving birth after being raped by her stepfather. Abortion is completely illegal in that country, as it is in El Salvador. If the Republicans get their way, we'll see such cases in the U.S. But hey, since when do Republicans care about women's lives?
25
The rights of the BORN need to come before the rights of the Not-born.
Seems simple enough to me.
19
While the Republican Party, in deference to their bible-thumping base, is on its crusade to ban abortion it is doing all it can to deny healthcare to many of the affected (often poor) pregnant women and their fetuses. They want to "preserve" unborn life but they are eagerly willing to endanger it after birth. How cruel and sick!
19
Iowa is on the verge of passing the same six-week “fetal heartbeat” bill that Kasich vetoed in Ohio in 2016. The only way to deal with these people is to crush them at the polls in November.
15
Abortions would become impossible to obtain for any woman other than a wealthy white woman, or the mistress of a Republican lawmaker, that is. For them, or course, it would be the ethical and moral thing to do.
11
Before Roe vs. Wade, illegal abortions were not impossible to obtain, and a great many women had them.
They were dangerous and carried criminal penalties, but that did not stop women who wanted them, and many suffered physical damage and even death.
Overturning Roe will not end abortions. It will just oppress women.
9
Republicans don't want to WIN the abortion argument. They want the argument to CONTINUE, because that's how they get elected. "It's not us!" they cry. "It's the godless Democrats who won't let us save the unborn babies! Elect more of us to office and we'll pass a PRO-LIFE AMENDMENT to the Constitution!"
And now, 45 years after Roe v. Wade, we've had five Republican Presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II), we've had the two most reactionary Supreme Courts in history (Rehnquist and Roberts), and now we have a whole Congress controlled by Republicans. Abortion is still legal, and will continue to be. No Republican in his right mind would sponsor a pro-life amendment. It would never make it out of committee, and then NOW, NARAL, and Emily's list would target that Republican for defeat in the next election. Trump can try to pack the Supreme Court with "conservative" (i.e., pro-life) Justices, but throughout American history SCOTUS has been loathe to override itself. Remember, Roe v. Wade was decided 7-2 by Warren Burger's court, and Burger was hardly a liberal.
You can legislate abortion, you can adjudicate abortion, but you cannot STOP abortion through governmental means. If you really want to minimize the number of abortions in this country, then provide sexual health education and access to sexual health care services. And hold MEN accountable for their sexual choices. Stop telling them that it's okay to walk away from their "mistakes."
16
Amen!!!!
How have we arrived at this point in America? I can hear my grandmother turning over in her grave!
8
It's interesting that the United Nations Human Rights Council says that carrying a pregnancy to term against one’s will can amount to torture. Women understand this. Men like those who run the Catholic church and the Republican party don't.
12
Evidently the constitutional protections of life, liberty, etc. begin at conceptopn and end at birth.
13
So. Now Donald Trump, a “play boy” who’s clearly had unprotected sex with many women over the years, has transformed himself into a devout right-to-life advocate, perhaps following the lead of agile Rep. Tim Murphy, the conservative congressman from Pennsylvania who preached against abortion in public while, behind the curtains, he advised his mistress to go find a clinic and get rid of the fetus they feared he’d engendered.
Do these guys know how sex works? That it has consequences?
Yes. They sorta do. But they don’t care. What they want is the power to take their pleasures and let the women clean up after them and, literally, bear the burden of any small accidents. That’s how it worked in the good old days. The threat of pregnancy, the fear of pregnancy, kept young women stalwart as defenders of Christian chastity ... or, at least, prompted them to cry “No no no!” in parked cars. And resistance can be titillating.
The good old days? In those good old days, my great-grandmother, Nancy Hiob, died of a septic back-alley abortion. St. Louis. 1903. Her husband agreed she should go through with it because they already had a little girl (my grandmother) and couldn’t afford another child. That man, great-grandpa, a tin smith, went on to take a second wife, a sturdy lady with some money and a few kids of her own. He was quite comfortable.
Women have fought so long for access to reliable contraceptives and safe abortions. And it’s always time to keep fighting ...
23
I admit that it is courageous on the part of US President - His initial position, committed as promise during his presidential campaign, is in sense, respected and even maintained and defends with conscience ... He is right the US president to ban abortion ... This is punishable crime. And to say that fetus over 4 months is already personified. How can one go through simplest, make an abortion that is so, a crime. Abortion real crime because doing it is '' killing an almost-baby ''
The US is not Algeria.
Thank goodness.
In Algeria, the most common form of maternal death is from uterine perforations, many caused by illegal abortions.
That's your idea of "courageous" by the misogynist men in your government.
2
Wonder if Kasich could just end this foolishness by stating he would veto---or will he let it happen because in his heart he believes this too-no matter what individual women might want for themselves.
4
Put a gun in the uterus and GOP won’t enact any bill restricting a woman’s reproductive rights. Why do these men love eggs but hate children and adults—Republicans hate helping people with health care, education, clean water and air, safe workplaces—everybody started as fertilized eggs. Republicans, GOP, Trump folks, & the NRA want zero restrictions on guns and bullets but all laws and restrictions on a woman’s birth control and abortion. It’s crazy backwards and defies kindness, love, and common sense.
13
In Israel, where abortion is legal, if during the pregnancy, a woman’s health is in jeopardy, they take the baby immediately because the legal situation that is presented is that the baby is trying to kill the mother. Just FYI. These lawmakers have no clue about pregnancy and birth. For some women, getting pregnant is already a death sentence.
The anti-abortion crowd is blinded by their righteousness. Always dangerous.
15
News to all “religious” men and women out there who think all women should not be able to decide things for themselves.
Your God gave all human beings - men and women alike - the ability to reason for themselves.
Which means a woman has the God given ability to choose what is what is best for her.
If you do not believe in that premise, take it up with your “God.”
7
We all have the right to control what is done with and to our bodies. Slavery is wrong.
9
Republicans abandon babies once they are born--see America's insane gun laws and our frightening lack of affordable healthcare, jobs that pay a living wage etc. Hypocrisy has never been more dangerous.
So what's the point? And who is going to take care of all of these babies if mothers at risk die as a result of being forced to deliver a baby? Or have nervous breakdowns because they're being forced to carry a fetus that was conceived because of rape?
Utterly horrifying.
7
Elections approach. Time for Republicans to roll out the rube bait issues. What single issue voters will wind up aborting is our democracy.
5
Let's ask my former congressman, Tim Murphy, ardent abortion foe, for his view.
He probably would have backed such a measure, but then his mistress became pregnant. Oops, the congressman whispered to her, get an abortion. Murphy's gone (he had to give way to Conor Lamb,) and these other hypocrites should follow him.
12
As usual, and always, the "we-don't-like-big-government" crowd does their immoral contortionist act to insist on big government's intrusion into one's personal sense of autonomy over their own bodies. Raped? And only 12? TOO BAD. Bear that pregnancy.
Calling themselves "pro-life" is just an example of "linguistic detoxification." They never were pro-life, just anti-choice. Quite simply, tell that hypocritical crowd that if you don't like abortions, then don't have one. Everyone else should be free to choose.
11
Without the right to abortion, women can be forced into pregnancy as a means of control: a way to keep a woman in a relationship or out of the workplace. Mostly pro-lifers want to exert control over the lives of others without taking responsibility for the consequences. They should only control their own responses to pregnancy.
8
RE Carrying to term a pregnancy against one’s will is punishment enough — in fact, it can amount to torture, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The UN HRC has very little credibilty. Just look at the some of the member nations.
3
Hey, what say we fire up our base! No, it won't pass Constitutional muster, but it'll certainly do the job of dividing our base from everybody else, keeping them safely under our control. That way, the won't vote for Democrats no matter how much health care, improved pay or gun safety they offer. Always remember: divide. Then steal them blind.
5
All US hospitals used to have a "septic abortion ward", to care for the maimed and dying victims of back alley and self induced abortions. The number of women who suffered and died in those special wards was around 1.5 million a year. The septic wards disappeared with the passage of Roe V Wade.
As long as men insist on their sexual superiority, women will have unwanted pregnancies. The mostly men who force these abortions and even contraception restrictions on women, are no better than rapists and murderers. They have their accusations wrong -- punishing the victims rather than saving lives. Enough of this tyranny by religious fanatics. The majority of Americans want these life saving medical services available for the 51% of the population who need them. Some people just want women to keep having unwanted babies, but they then refuse to help them with their results, that often end up filling our jails and slums. These people are NOT "pro-life".
11
The "we don't like it therefore you can't do it" philosophy...
8
I wonder how many anti-abortion people are also gunnies?
10
These days, it's almost inevitable that vicious male enemies of the sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights of innocent female US citizens are also gun-humpers. Almost every single FB profile of a radical misogynist male shows said male's gun collection, with some even proudly displaying dead innocent animals they've killed. Yeah, real "pro-life".
3
And here we are in Gilead.
4
In their zeal to ban all abortions, these extremists hurt their own cause.
Since a great majority of Americans support abortions pre late term, the chance of getting is overturned is slim.
Also if they did, the illegal back alley abortion mills will come back in operation and thousands of women and unborn children would be killed or injured.
Pro choice extremists would help their own cause (cut down on early term abortions as much as possible) if they worked to eliminate late term abortions, fund planned parenthood like orgs. to cut down on on wanted pregs. and also work with drugs companies to promote the morning after pill.
3
typo on my post...last paragraph should be anti abortion extremists not pro choice extremists.
1
Let's ask the big question to these Ohio men:
How many unwanted children have you adopted?
All legislators voting for this should have a mandatory requirement to adopt one of the unwanted children that would have been aborted, especially those with special needs and handicaps due in-vitro problems.
I'd like to see that as an amendment, with no extra funding to take the kids in.
6
When will pro-life voters realize it's all a ruse to get their vote? Many "pro-life" politicians publicly decry abortion but would privately support their daughter if she needed one. The worst of them are begging their mistresses to get one. Look at Trump. Would anyone be surprised to learn how many times he has footed the bill for this procedure? Wake up pro-life voters, you are being manipulated.
4
Republicans will lose America for decades.
4
The GOP's disgusting tactics to destroy federal law because the base cares about it are just plain wrong. De-funding, distracting, niggling away at laws are all tactics that undermine the rule of law and the will of the people of this country.
I live in Ohio and some nutcase representative comes up with another anti-abortion bill that wastes time the legislature could be working on issues like infrastructure or health care. Bills that are flagrantly unconstitutional should be tossed out, their authors should be censured, warned to stop wasting our time and money, and if they can't stop the nonsense, removed from their positions.
Quit railroading democracy!
5
Why should pregnant women alone be singled out as a class required to provide, against their will, their blood, tissue, and organs to others?
I have yet to see a pro-lifer say that blood, tissue, and organ donation should be mandated for any other class of persons. Even if the donation would make the difference for life or death for babies and children.
Why is that? Why should the bodily autonomy of pregnant women inferior to that of any other person in this country?
8
Several points from a pro-choice perspective:
1) Conservatives are slick and usually like to present their case as punishing the abortion provider rather than the woman, thus protecting her. They know that supporting prison for a woman seeking an abortion is politically untenable. Therefore, perhaps if the emphasis were on punishing the woman with prison, since they believe abortion is murder and so she would be equally culpable, it would be a more potent wake-up call to women.
2) I respect the strict pro-life position against abortion even in cases of rape. I have never understood the distinction from their point of view, since they believe abortion is murder. The exception for rape reflects a moral inconsistency. After all, the aborted fetus resulting from rape should be just as innocent as the aborted fetus resulting from consensual sex. But then here lies the real motivation: conservatives don't like women to have the freedom to have sex for fun. This is more to control a woman's sexuality. With regard to exceptions for incest, at least that makes sense from a medical point of view.
3) The pro-choice groups need to reframe their position as a women's health issue. Reproductive rights is too abstract and intellectual as a rationale. They need to bring to the fore images and stories of the harm and death suffered in the days of back-alley abortionists. They need to evoke emotions, just as the anti-choice groups do.
2
The so called Christian GOP, so very concerned with fetuses, needs to put their money and actions where their mouth is.
Here's a quote from a respected Catholic nun, who states the issue better than I can.
"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."
Sister Joan Chittister
5
Distrust of women.
Control of women.
The two things this is about. Distrust and control. Period.
The rest is smokescreen and rationalizations.
8
The anti-abortion crowd is about as anti-life as it gets.
Gun control? Anti-life
Death penalty? Anti-life
Health care? Anti-life
I'm actually pro-life. That's why I donate to Planned Parenthood.
15
"...as when he said during a primary season town hall event that women who seek abortions should face “some form of punishment.”
The phrasing of this is incredibly misleading and needs context.
I remember this townhall very well, and I remember that the there was a question that preceded Trump's statement. Trump's response was one to a hypothetical question that began with "If abortion were outlawed nationwide...should women face punishment?"
So basically, "if something were illegal (which isn't illegal now), should a hypothetical lawbreaker face punishment if they broke the hypothetical law?"
I know that this editorial board rarely agrees with Trump's policies, but I think you owe it to the readers to at least honestly share all of the facts in your arguments.
That's disingenuous.
In saying that women deserve punishment for having abortions Trump was advocating that abortion should be illegal.
You can't spin it any other way.
1
Trump is not pro-life.
First and foremost, Trump is Pro-Donald-Trump. It's all about him.
Trump is deceitful decadence and hypocrisy at its best.
The current Republican party has lost all respect for working-poor Americans and cares only about it's own power, first and foremost.
4
The Republicans remove all possible regulations on banks and corporations because of too much government regulation. But pro-choice people think its OK to regulate women. Perfectly insane!
3
You mean anti-choice people.
1
You can see why "Handmaids Tale" is such a hit on TV.
3
Yes.
The Right takes the side of the government.
Killing an unborn baby isn’t “healthcare.” Its a constitutionally protected choice to seek a medical procedure that terminates an otherwise healthy pregnancy. I agree that the state should have little leeway in managing a woman’s right to choose, but stop calling it “healthcare.”
1
Abortion is a medical procedure.
Medical procedures all come under the heading of "healthcare."
A fetus is not an "unborn baby."
2
We now know that irresponsible Mr. Trump does not use condoms during his extramarital affairs so the next question is how many of his affairs have led to unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
1
In an age of great scientific advances and extraordinary technologies, why is there not a contraceptive that is extremely easy to use and available to all persons who do not wish to be pregnant? Would that not make null and void [except rape, incest] the issue of abortion? Perhaps a philanthropy can be endowed to bestow a great financial prize for such a discovery.
We know that Trump did not use birth control himself with the 2 women confronting him in the media lately, and he was cheating on woman who did have his child so he needs to explain his hypocritical and phony religious stance and he should be asked whether he has ever pressed someone to have an abortion in the many many extramarital flings he has publicly bragged about - give Sarah Sanders the day off - and let's hear his sexual history from the WH cesspool.
Can legislators be impeached for knowingly writing unconstitutional laws or for failing to uphold their oath?
Kasich, et al, should be subject to an anatomy and physiology questionnaire administered by a panel of female doctors. I doubt he knows what a fallopian tube even is. Or an ectopic pregnancy.
Does he feel qualified to tell a couple that as a representative of the state that his take on their reproductive choices should be theirs too? He is not running a religious council- he is not an imam, he is a US governor. He should likewise be pushing medical intrusion for male voters, to be decided by legislation.
4
I don't ask for much. Just keep the government out of my bedroom and my doctor's office.
7
So let me understand, the same “Christians” who embrace Donald Trump, voted for Roy Moore, deny acceptance to any individual but their so-called lovers of the lord, do not vote to help those in need, even children - will take away a women’s right to choose. It is the height of hypocrisy!
2
If you haven't read The Handmaids Tale please do or watch the series on Hulu.
The scary parallels with the emphasis on God,Guns and the "handmaids" who are prisoners with only one purpose to produce a child. Of course it is the men in power who rape them every month to try to impregnate them.
Almost sounds like the exact world the GOP and David Dennison want.
5
Mr. Kasich should be ashamed of himself. This is "The Handmaid's Tale." The life of the woman counts for nothing. Radical rightwing Christian theology becomes the law for everybody. Men, e.g., Kasich, and the state control women's bodies. Should a woman violate this Christian law, they are charged with murder. Even if their own lives are at risk. Even if they have been raped.
5
This bill is not a gateway to less restrictive anti-abortion bills. No need to be concerned with this, as it is just another male yokel trying to make a name as a god-fearing crusader for the right. What is more alarming is the sentiments of women who elect politicians behind these hare-brained ideas. Lets not forget that a majority of white women voted for Trump, despite his self-confessed sexual assaults. So if women want to protect their rights, it's time to act locally and nationally.
No. A majority of white women who voted, voted for Trump.
Since only 40% of the electorate voted, those women were not a majority of all white women.
2
Maybe I missed it, but I saw zero mention of the word father and the bill’s obligations imposed on fathers, or mention of the services that would be offered to women forced to give birth - services for either the woman or the future human the bill’s authors are supposedly so concerned about.
If women’s bodies are treated by men and lawmakers as agency-less vessels to carry a man’s child, if the state can require a woman to become a mother against her will, surely there must go hand in hand obligations on the part of those men to hold the fathers to as much account as possible. And to provide support and good education and health care and a living wage and a quality and dignity of life to the future human. No? No obligations - let alone “punishment” for the father. No basic human services for the “human” once it’s actually born? Once again this bill makes so clear that “pro life” in fact means “control and subjugate women” and the pro life stance has no relationship to any actual value placed on human life and dignity. The hypocrisy of “pro-lifers” is blatant and horrifying.
10
It has been clear from the outset that the GOP strategy is to remand women to secondary roles and return our country to the 1950's. How better to accomplish this task than to restrict not only access to a legal abortion, but to birth control as well. When will they realize that legislated morality never works in a Westernized nation. Alcohol, Drugs, etc, all failed attempts at controlling the populace.
3
To the remarkable young people of America: once you are done schooling our idiot politicians regarding gun control, please consider taking up this issue.
5
It would be helpful if all the women residents of the state of Ohio who have had abortions for whatever reason would come together to protest this invasion of their privacy.
Meanwhile -- any woman contemplating attending college, working in, or moving to Ohio for any reason should voice her objection to having her civil rights violated.
BTW -- I think that a more appropriate drawing to accompany this editorial would have that woman lying in stirrups with her legs spread and the hands of those legislators reaching in her vagina. I think that picture would replace the proverbial "thousand words."
5
Remember coat hanger and back street abortions? How about we make access to birth control easy. When we empower women, things get better. This is well documented around the world.
The Republican war on contraceptives is a scandal without excuse. Want fewer abortions, make birth control accessible.
5
I know that some things are sacred--Holy Grail stuff--with NYT backstage online censors, trenchant, pointed abortion comments being one, but show some courage:
Nice piece of propaganda. Classic NYT self-serving Neo-Marxism. You want “unfairness” and “inequality” try being an unborn child in a woman who gets an abortion. Where's its "Bill of Rights", the mother's pocket?
1
Your handle is an insult to a liberal institution.
I daresay you don't have a clue about Marxism. It's just a catch-all label to you for anything to the left of dictatorship.
Fools who vote Republican, especially female fools, get what they deserve.
5
As an Ohioan, I am sick to death of her intolerance. I am sick of her trying to shove their none values down someone's throat. The right to choose IS a woman's right and no one else's !! It's bad enough they do not want abortions but they do not want birth control. Who are you:? The hypocrisy is mind boggling. Republican representative Scott DesJarlain, Tennessee begged his mistress to get one. How many more are there who have done the same thing. We had a representative who had sex with his boyfriend in his office, married and anti gay. how many more are there? Once the children are born, they do not want to feed them, house, clothe, medicate them. We black people are lied to about Planned Parenthood and that they built the first clinic to abort black babies. All a lie, the first was for immigrant white woman to help them with health care. Harlem leaders begged Margaret Sanger to open a clinic in Harlem to save black mothers and infants. W. E. B. Dubois was one of those leaders, so lie to some one else. Do not mix protecting lives with Eugenics which wealthy Americans believed in and then became the method of choice used by Adolph Hitler.
5
If a fetus is a person, then it isn't a question of right to life, it's a question of right to gestate. Do other people have a right to gestate in my uterus and suck resources out of my body? You can see the absurdity of calling a fetus a person prior to viability.
4
Good point!
Very difficult topic and we need to respect the varying views. But pro life means protecting living beings before and after they are born. How can the GOP say they are pro life if they allow everyone to have whatever weapons they want just because they are fun? And also keep in mind that many GOP states want to reduce social services funds that would help families that cannot afford to raise families. These conflicting views dont go together.
I can respect a person without respecting their views with which I don't agree.
Especially not when those views would harm others.
Enslaving women by rape is the real objective of theses monsters. Every last one of them is a creep.
5
I do not Know this f any woman who, after being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term and then have the child taken from them, often after spending a brief time with their newborn, that wasn't severely psychologically damaged. I do know of a great number of the women became suicides. Even the U.N. has designatedforced birth as torture.
Next person who states Kasich is a "moderate" gets this URL shouted in their ear.
4
Where in these comments is to be found a particular but not rare Christian perspective? A fellow attorney once informed me, not only did he pray for me to find Jesus (I am Jewish and have not), he also considered that the bad things that befell America in large part were because we killed innocent souls through abortion before they could accept/know Christ (I have forgotten the exact term he used, perhaps baptized?). As a consequence, per that line of "reasoning", innocent souls were doomed to eternal damnation. (I did not think to ask about miscarriages.)
Of wars we have waged for no good reason, a false flag conflict such as Viet Nam, or invading Iraq on misrepresented intelligence, killing millions of innocent civilians, my guess is that their perspective is no harm, no foul, nationalistically or politically justified, lost killed were "the other" anyway, but I believe this innocent-souls-eternally-damned perspective can be found as a core belief of many anti-abortion advocates.
Personally I find abortion a difficult decision, but one that ultimately should be left to an informed woman who has reasonable access, not across state lines, etc., to a medically performed procedure.
5
I know that some things are sacred--Holy Grail stuff--with NYT backstage online censors, trenchant, pointed abortion comments being one, but show some courage, for the second time:
Nice piece of propaganda. Classic NYT self-serving Neo-Marxism. You want “unfairness” and “inequality” try being an unborn child in a woman who gets an abortion. Where's its "Bill of Rights", the mother's pocket?
3
1. All children, everywhere, have already been born.
2. Rights accrue to citizens at birth, or the naturalization of an already born person.
I do hope this clears up your fuzzy-headed misunderstandings of the sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights of innocent female US citizens.
3
Uh, what? I don't have the right to demand that my mother donate her organs to me right now, as a 30 year old woman, do I? No. Likewise, I didn't have that right when I was a fetus, and I shouldn't have had that right.
See? Fetuses and 30 year olds are on equal standing.
Not complicated at all. I hope you feel better now!
2
This is about punishing women who get
pregnant and punishing the child they would be
forced to bea roften in dire circumstances.
Those who oppose abortion are sadists to the
mother and the child. How would you like to be born
unwanted into poverty? If the GOP had any concern
about the child they would support social services
and make sure the mother had enough
money and support to bring up the child
in a safe and sane society, Are the one
percent and big business going to fund
that cause? Not when they are stealing
from the poor and middleclass as they
are doing right now. They just never
have enough money it seems. Sure
be against abortion but not against
the cruelty and horrid fate of being
unwanted and most probably having
a terribly deprived childhood. Yes this
has been said over and over again I know
but you cannot want to stop abortions
and birth control and force women
to give birth with out providing for them
after the birth. Do not want to provide
for them? Thought so, then you are monsters!
4
Yes, as even Trump had to admit, sort of, banning abortions means that women with money and access will continue to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Women who don't, will die. It might be that is the game plan all along. Because we know sure as hell who we are talking about. And when was the last time you saw a black baby on an anti-abortion billboard?
3
Republicans would force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy and spew words of fake concern and compassion. Then as soon as the baby is born and the mother needs government assistance of one form or another she is labelled a whore that wants free help and food stamps. My dream is to see all these immoral and vile men reborn as women, pregnant , poor and single and why not belonging to a minorit, underprivileged group. Now, that would be sweet.
4
The kids are right. It's time to vote out these idiots.
7
To many who commented here see this as a right/left issue. It is not. It is 1) a health issue and 2) it is a reproductive rights issue. The same individuals who are hell bent on making abortion illegal and pushing it underground, where women will be put at high risk for death and injury, are the same individuals who refuse to take responsibility for the children after they are born. The are same who decry taxes for health programs, nutrition programs, and education programs for these children. This hypocrisy cannot be denied by the anti-abortion crowd. Keeping abortion legal is a reproductive right that most women and many men support.
3
But it is a Right-Left issue.
The anti-choicers are overwhelmingly on the Right, the pro-choicers on the Left.
The individuals you characterize embody the Right.
Consider this:
The Democrats are the party who create legislation and regulation, the Doers, who protect our air, our rights and privileges, innovate new science and look for solutions to our (and the earth's) problems, and our provide us security.
The GOP is the party who are the UnDoers, who cut regulation to appease industry and leave us at risk of pollution and toxic substances, want coal to come back and support fossil fuel subsidies while blocking alternative energy, block voter access and are prolific gerrymanderers, create legislation that leaves millions without healthcare under the guise of personal rights while denying us personal choice.
Roe v. Wade guaranteed women the right to life and health, the right be able to bring a child into an economically sound hom, and the right to medical privacy in their choices. It did not compel those who chose NOT to abort to accept that private or moral decision. It is time for the pro "life" movement to take care of their own communities...the families who have kids that are being abused, are undernourished, underfed, undereducated. It is also time that they stopped trying to define a collection of cells growing within a woman's body as unborn human. If they want to go that far, then let's get the men involved too....they need to engage in sex (releasing their semen) only to procreate, they cannot discard a condom, they cannot masturbate or they, too can face criminal charges.
Roe v. Wade worked. Leave it alone.
7
Pro-life? What a joke! They only care about themselves,not the woman,not the unborn. Every woman has the right to choose what she does with her body. Prove to me there is a god who is anti-abortion. Prove to me there is a god! The deciders are mostly white men who use religion to hide behind,so that they can keep “their”women on a short rope. That there are women who still go along with this willingly,amazes me. The more I see of this world,the happier I will be to leave it,and if need be, by legal euthanasia. And I am sure that there will be no god on the other side sending me to a fictional hell for the abortion I had 44 years ago.
2
Thank you Ohio and other states that might follow this path. These actions, in combination with Trump's misogyny, give women even more reason to go to the polls in November. The attempt by the pro-life folks to point out the gray areas is all about seeking cover. The intent is clear - not gray.
2
With all of the problems Ohio has, THIS is what the GOP wants to push??
Set up an ideological battle, instead of concentrating on fixing REAL issues?
No wonder Republicans are losing state elections, and soon - the U.S. Congress.
Keep up the good work, GOP. Don't let what the voters want get in the way of your 60-year-old ideals.
7
No surprises here. This is what Conservative Jihad looks like. Republicans must be stopped at the polls in Nov - by any means necessary.
6
Hypocrites is what they are, making women carry pregnancies that they do not want or can afford, while at the same time denying them any help whether it is medical, a roof over their heads or food on their table. They just love the fetus, the actual baby is no longer their problem.
They want to treat women as ovens for fetuses and them throw them put with their babies to fend for themselves. Disgusting, vile, inhumane, GOP.
7
Why is the "patient" in that sketch a black woman?.....Hmmmm, just saying...SMH!!
2
To me her race is undistinguished. She could be asian, african, or european or mixed origin However, no matter what her ethnicity she looks American what with all the white, male, non-doctors telling her what to do.
3
Why is she any race at all?
Because everyone belongs to one.
What difference does it make?
1
Ok, people, this is where we are now. The right-wing Christian Taliban is going to actually triumph on this issue. It is so shocking, I can only shake my head.
We are going to race backwards and overtake the Middle East. Maybe we should just stone women to death who defy the clerics.
7
"Mr. Trump's cruel vision...". So, saving lives is now cruel according to Democrats. Mr. Trump wants to end the death penalty for pre-born children...how morally bankrupt of him.
We truly live in the most absurd of times. Imagine if Nazi's argued that it was cruel to NOT send people to concentration camps...
1
Stormy Daniels says that Donald Trump did not use a condom when they had sex. Did he ask if she was using birth control? What if she was not and she became pregnant? How many thousands of dollars would he have paid her to have an abortion?
5
Law no doubt written by white men over 60 years old.
2
THE GOPPERS Are going to make it impossible for everyone other than the 1% to prosper in the US. Yes, an Ohio abortion bill does target a certain population in ways different from disenfranchasing the far larger group of middle class citizens. Still, it is important to recognize the repressive, Fascistic direction in which the US is headed. Hitler ruled in the most unstable, savage way. Stalin and Mao too. Do we need another monster like those of the 20th century in the 21st? NO!
3
Hey ladies!
Hey husbands of ladies!
Hey fathers of teenage girls!
Hey sisters and grandparents of women!
Uncles, aunts, cousins… friends of girls and women!
And, last but not least moms.
Good old, dear, sweet, loving mom.
Mom who probably works so the family can pay the bills and keep the kids safe and sound.
Mom who is…well…mom.
All she does for everyone.
How would you like to visit…
mom, sister, auntie, grandma (if she's a young one) in prison?
Maybe death row?
Because she miscarriaged?
Because she lost the child…wanted or unwanted.
10% chance for women under age 35.
45% chance for women over age 40.
How about prison for mom or your daughter if, after their brutal rape, they seek to terminate the cruel, unwanted pregnancy some nice Republican legislator says, "uh, uh, you have that man's child!… or prison for you!"
That man could be a stranger in the mall parking lot… a co-worker…
Or even the teenagers own father.
Prison!
Cause you conceived after your rape!
Think this is all fantasy?
Think you want to live in such a country?
Think that's America?
Wanna read about a country where it's reality. (There are only six on Earth… hey America could be lucky seven!)
Here's El Salvador.
Here are the facts.
Read.
Then, call, visit, collar your Republican legislators and hit 'em right in their worthless brains.
This ain't no joke.
Read and be horrified.
https://www.google.com/search?q=abortion+el+salvador&ie=UTF-8&oe...
6
Women. Wake up. Republicans hate you. They wish we had what Muslim countries have. Women home in veils , walking ten steps behind when in public. Women subservient to men. Vote for these sharia law lovers at your own peril
8
Bills like this not only show Republicans as anti-born-life but also put potential life on a higher level than a woman's. Women do not yet have rights under the constitution. Remember that.
Vote Democrat and take back this country.
9
Wonderful ! God bless Ohio !
Just like Saudi Arabia. Backwards from the future. It’s the McConnell shut up to women. Ryan self righteousness toward women’s rights.
Just like Saudi Arabia. Mmmm.
2
VOTE!!
4
Register all the unborn as Democrats. Let's see what affect that has.
3
@Kerry: "Affect"? Thanks for your wisdom.
Republicans are great at exploiting their moronic base.
2
So sayeth the New York Times Editorial Board:
...
Safe,
Popular
and
Common form
of Health Care.
And not a word about what happens to the babe in the womb...
1
For the patient, safe and legal pregnancy termination is over 13x safer than ANY full-term pregnancy, and is safer than a routine colonoscopy. And there is only ONE patient - the living, breathing WOMAN.
1
No, I was never a "babe in the womb." Like I said, there is no place called "the womb." That abstract womb you're talking about is a person- my mother. Or me. My mother (C), a living, breathing person, gestated the fetus that became me (C's Fetus?). I would never ever desire that she be FORCED to do so. How sick. I love my mother too much to say that she should have been compelled into bodily servitude just to gestate C's Fetus.
(I can make my point without maudlin, simpering emotive language. You can't-- and you should consider what that says about the strength of your argument.)
If someone attempted to abort against my will a fetus with which I was pregnant, that would be assault and battery, and it would be wrong for the same reason that what YOU are trying to do is wrong-- because it takes away MY choice about what to do with MY pregnancy. Got it?
I don't care if you think my writing is insulting. What's interesting to me is that you haven't shown how it is *wrong.*
I do not like when cranky, maudlin old men try to tell me that I must be forced to gestate against my will. You're telling me that I'm a second class citizen and my freedom and health don't matter. So yes, my writing might be "mean." Cope with it. Telling women to watch their tone isn't a good look for you right now.
(And no, I wasn't "born via pregnancy" --what does that even mean? I was born vaginally. My sister was born by c-section.)
3
I'm beyond weary of the anti-abortion, anti-people movement to interfere in the most personal of decisions. They want to be allowed to give misinformation on medical options and they want to defund anything that has to do with a woman's vagina and womb. While simultaneously not providing medical care to thousands of children. They want boxed packages of food for those who are hungry. And their idea of a democracy is to gerrymander and impeach those who don't adhere to their beliefs. I've been watching the disintegration of our freedoms to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness burn at an ever faster rate this year and it's scary. Now where is the AMA in this? Is the medical profession another dying profession in this country because of politicians?
2
About that last sentence –
“Popular”?????
What happened to the (meaningless) liberal talking point about making abortion “safe, legal, and rare.”?
“Safe”?????
How is abortion safe? For whom? Try asking the victims of abortionist “Dr.” Kermit Gosnell, now serving a life sentence for mass murder as well as medical incompetence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell
“Common form of health care”?????
Aborting a healthy baby growing inside a healthy mother (the vast majority of abortions in the USA) is not health care, any more than is chopping off a healthy limb or implanting a stent in a normal coronary artery. It is something else masquerading as health care.
Abortion may be a “right” (so said the Supreme Court in 1973, I respectfully disagree), but that does not make it “health care”.
All babies, everywhere, have already been born.
For the patient, safe and legal pregnancy termination is 13x safer than ANY full-term pregnancy, and safer than a routine colonoscopy. And there is only ONE patient involved - the living, breathing WOMAN.
4
@goatini
You are factually incorrect. Medical students taking Obstetrics in are taught that in caring for a pregnant woman they are taking care of (at least) 2 patients - mother and child.
Google the term "video of fetal surgery". You will see many examples of phenomenally skilled surgical team operating on 20-week old human fetal babies. Their doctors consider them to be a patient (who need anesthesia for pain, by the way). Their mothers do not consider them to be "my fetus" or "my clump of cell", but "my baby".
Abortion would be more rare with sane sex education and easy access to contraceptives — both things many on the Right oppose.
Gosnell was not a legitimate abortionist, he was a criminal. Abortion is many times safer than pregnancy.
Abortion is a medical procedure, and therefore comes under the heading of healthcare, whether you like it or not.
3
This bill, which also matches GOP official party plank, means that any man in the world can force any woman to bear his child, simply by raping her, right?
4
Ultimately, there is only one solution: women should just plain REEFUSE to have sex with men who are pro-choice.
To Rita,
Rita, I graduated from medical school in the early 1970’s (with honors) and have kept up an active interest in public health issues. That said I may have missed some recent developments.
Rita I am interested to know the basis of your certainty that . . .
‘Ultrasound technology, together with biology, embryology, fetal surgery, and examination of the human remains of an abortion, all tell us that the victim targeted for abortion is a human being’
I know of no acknowledged expert in those fields who make those claims.
I do know of medically trained people who have ‘simply made stuff up’ to bolster their religious views. You probably will have heard of Dr John Willke, a general practitioner who with his wife, Barbara, published Handbook on Abortion in 1971. It became a best seller amongst RTL people.
But John Willke, was loose with the truth. According to the Wikipedia entry on Willke . . . ‘In an interview on August 20, 2012, following the Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy, Willke said: "This is a traumatic thing—she's, shall we say, she’s uptight. She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic."
Rita there is no evidence for that statement.
Rita we all can be taken in by propaganda that fits with our prior beliefs but a question for you. Does your religion say anything about people who continue to propagate untruths?
Journey with courage and kindness
5
So they’re gonna do this? They’re gonna pull this stunt? These people are beyond stupid and beyond cruel. Roe v. Wade isn’t just about abortion. It’s about privacy rights. Duh. What delusional individual in this misogynistic country actually thinks that Roe is about women’s rights? It’s clothed in that guise is all. Let’s assume that these Republicans get what they want: A constitutionally upheld total abortion ban making abortion a 1st. Degree murder. Guess what morons? Murder 1 is a federal crime with no statute of limitations. That means that every woman and every single medical personnel that provided care in any way is a murderer and or accessory to murder. In order to enforce this law all the medical records henceforth have no privacy protection. Nor do they have any privacy protection in the past. Let’s jail the entire medical industry. From billing clerks to hospital administrators and anyone in between. Or.... let’s place a statute of limitations on murder. Go on you Republicans, open up that can of legal worms. Good luck with that.
3
It important to remember that these same people aren’t doing a thing about the rape kit backlog. About child marriage. About the fact the thousands of women become pregnant as a result of rape. The fact that these women are raped DOES NOT MATTER. THEY DO NOT CARE IF 1,000,000 women are raped in the state of Ohio. They laugh in the faces of these rape victims. But if one of those women decides to have an abortion that they believe is something that should be stopped. Not the rape itself. That’s fine they don’t care, but if a rape victim tries to have an abortion that they think you should be stopped.
This is not hyperbole. This is their words and their actions. Ask them what they have done to address the rape epidemic. I’ll wait. The answer with these “people”(I use the term for want of a better word) is always nothing.
Me I don’t care about abortion. I care that women AND LITTLE GIRLS are raped. And we as society have decided that they don’t matter and that as long as the victims don’t have abortions there is nothing to see.
7
Gloria Steinem said it best. According to her, the Republicans believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. Until we have no hungry children and no children living in poverty, I do not believe any Republican can call himself pro-life.
Children are our future. It makes no sense to deny them adequate nutrition and resources or gun them down in our streets, schools, churches, theaters and any other venue. Nor is it sensible for us to poison them and the very (and only) planet they will ever see.
6
These people are not pro-life. They are pro-fetus. George Carlin did a spot on bit on "pro-lifers." In essence he said, once that baby is born these are the same people that want to deny it healthcare, an education, lodging and nourishment. These are the people that want to treat women like breeding stock. These are the people that want to turn these babies into dead soldiers. You can find George Carlin's entire take on the "pro-lifers" on the internet.
5
Is it 1940? And when will I wake up from this nightmare? 2020 or 2022?
5
There are several countries, France, Germany, Italy and India which limit elective abortions to the first trimester. Why can't we imitate their wise ways and put this issue to rest?
Because it is not wise to imprison women in the undeserved punishment of unwanted pregnancy.
I don't find those countries "wise" in their limits on abortion.
1
Last I checked, two people are responsible for a pregnancy. I'm all for banning abortion when the man responsible for the pregnancy is forced to be neutered.
8
Are you sure there isn't an exception written into the bill for the girlfriends and teen daughters of Republicans. They always get behind these draconian measures and religious principles except when they apply to them. It is truly ironic that these laws regulating women's bodies and denying them healthcare for family planning and reproductive rights are almost always advanced by old white men who make sure they have healthcare coverage for erectile disfunction. And of course, for fiscal reasons they oppose funds for families with small children and adoption. They care about the unborn until they are born.
3
Eliminating abortion in the U.S. is the just the first step in controlling women’s bodies. Republicans and Evangelicals will then move to eliminate birth control because the only role for women is a homemaker caring for her hubby and children. We will be a better and stronger nation then. Right?
4
The authoritarian personalities who are obsessed with abortion don't give a fig about human life. This is only and ever about controlling and punishing women. There are at least two reasons for this determined effort to keep women "in their place." One is the assurance of legitimacy. Ah, yes, what a manly man, to be the father of sons! The "guarding" of women, to make sure those sons were his, must have begun early. So, how to make that "guarding" of half the human population legitimate? Hmmm... Religion was the answer. Yes...for us it was an omnipotent, omniscient male god who blamed women for all the ills that befall us humans, including death. We coulda stayed in the Garden of Eden forever, after all, if it hadn't been for HER! So there's reason two: someone to blame for the troubles of the world. Women have been seen as witches, blamed for "tempting" men to do evil, obviously at fault for being raped, irresponsible for getting pregnant, sinful for being sexual beings. The prevailing religions sanction and legitimize the "guarding." And the punishment, the shame, the controlling, the "guarding," continue to this day. Insecure men are threatened by the thought of women being "equal," and insecure women are both threatened by the changing rules and envious of other women who ignore the old rules. If they were truly pro-life, they'd encourage birth control. But then women would be free. Wouldn't they.
5
This sounds like a scheme dreamt up by Republican politicians and evangelicals when Donald Trump was much more popular. But Trump is now down to one lawyer just as the Mueller investigation is reaching its climax, and he's being publicly spanked, not just by a smart prom star, but by millions of schoolchildren and their parents across the nation. And the sponsors of this noxious bill, far-right politicians playing to the ever-shrinking evangelical demo, are very late to the gate. America is changing fast, and we're leaving Republicans and their hateful stunts behind.
1
It’s pretty simple: if you don’t believe in abortions then don’t have one.
Otherwise, leave me alone.
6
Let’s be clear about Trump’s position on abortion. He has none. It’s whichever way the wind blows. What’s most expedient. Whatever he thinks will gin up the base. And possibly, whatever the situation in his personal life requires.
3
And what about the child's father? Will he also be punished?
4
Abortion is so common that over fifty million have been sought and done sense legalization. Almost every person in America has a close relative that got an abortion.
1
Folks, broaden your vocabularies! The editorial's use of the word "popular" is correct; the word has more than one meaning. It is not used here to mean "favored" in the manner a celebrity or a sports activity is "popular." It means "approved by the majority." Legal access to abortion is approved by the majority of Americans. Republican, so-called "pro-life" legislators represent an "unpopular," i.e., minority, viewpoint.
1
Al Luongo in response to Rita J writes: "A very early fetus may or may not be a human being: there is no objective way to prove or disprove this statement, and there is honest disagreement about it."
Some very late adults -- mostly old white men like Ron Hood and Donald Trump -- may or may not be "human" beings, either.
A defining quality of a "human being" is being "humane". Hood, Trump and other men like them exhibit none of that toward women.
For reference, "humane" is defined as "having qualities befitting human beings" and "Inhuman is the opposite of humane". http://www.dictionary.com/browse/humane
Curious about reaction if citizenship rights attached at conception, allowing foreign visitors to conceive in the US, give birth elsewhere, and have their babies still be US citizens. If they’re “persons” from conception, why not?
3
Popular and common form of healthcare? Exactly the problem. It should not be common. It should be of medical necessity and used as a last resort. It seems that this is so common and popular that it is just another form of birth control. So many kids are sill so embarrassed about sex and birth control that they do not use it, but when it comes time for the abortion there is no shame. This really has to change. I am not for taking the rights completely away from the woman, but this is far too common. Other countries look at what we are doing here as genocide. Lets keep it legal and uncommon.
Abortion has always been common, and it always will be. A large percentage of pregnancies are unwanted, and women are desperate to end them. Even in countries where abortion is illegal, abortion is common. In fact, some of those countries (e.g. in South America) have the highest abortion rates in the world. Making contraception more easily available would help, as would de-stigmatizing female sexuality.
1
So according to Ohio only the female would be punished for having an abortion. So I wonder how many of the pro life men in this world would still be pro life if castrations for the involved men was mandated? It couldn’t be considered any more cruel and unusual then executing a female for having one. So hey let’s have a pro choice female politician advocate this. After all in the spirit of fairness and dual responsibility pro life men should willing agree. Shouldn’t they..........? Perhaps we would weed the wheat from the chaff on this issue if such a policy was seriously advocated.
1
The GOP basically comes down to wanting to protecting fetuses yet will do nothing to help save men, women, and CHILDREN from gun violence. The politics in this country is warped beyond comprehension. Their politics is a politics of greed, power, money, and hate. May they someday all choke on their base, immoral hypocrisy. That would be you, Mercers, Kochs, DeVos, Adelsons, Trumps, et al.
4
All abortions should be banned. It's a human life in the womb no matter what they tell you. Human doesn't happen at X weeks. It's human life from the time the egg is fertilized by the sperm.
Imagine where you'd be if your mother had been too busy or tired to have you.
All resources to help pregnant mothers who need help must be provided. There are alreay many such resources out there and many more are needed.
Ban all abortions. Support all life.
1
Being unwanted is hell on earth.
3
It takes two to make a baby. Ridiculous laws that charge women with murder ending a pregnancy should also take the father of the child into account for putting the mother in a desperate position. If a woman is charged with murder, then her partner should be charged with some ridiculous crime as well. Punishable by sterilization or castration plus a jail sentence, But, no, these laws are always designed to control and punish women only. But it would be fun to see a majority of female legislators give it a try and give men a taste of what it feels like to have your life, health, and future controlled by a bunch of moralizing strangers.
1
Since a miscarriage is also a "self-induced" biological abortion why not make that subject to life imprisonment too? I can see this nation falling gradually into a third world status, despite its economic superiority. Combined with trade wars and stupid spending / new tax bills I now truly believe we're headed in that direction.
How is the right to decide what woman do with there body’s any of the governments concern? We live in a free country but government wants to take more rights away from woman and pretty soon no woman is going to live in the US. And how can you even punish some one for making that decision. Would you want a child to be brought up in a home if the mother could not provide for the child. If the mother was raped and the baby was a produced of that the mother is going to be for ever reminded of what happened. That’s how children get abused. And also to say the mother is not allowed to have an abortion to save her own life. So you would want that child to grow up mother less. I think the people who are trying to decide this should sit down with a OBGY and ask what a woman would ave to go though if the pregnancy was not safe for her. Also they should sit down with a CPS worker or someone in the filed of child abuse and ask them what they see on the daily when parents cant provide for there children or what kind of abuse they have seen.
3
Abortion is murder and why is it so hard for people to not see this fact. You are taking the life of an innocent fetus/baby who has absolutely no say in the matter. I applaud Ohio for taking this very important stand and I hope other states follow. What have we become as a nation when we start killing our own. This barbaric behavior must end and hopefully it will. I am a pro life woman and proud who today completed the 40 Days for Life campaign which happens to be Palm Sunday.
Prove to me that a fertilized egg is a human being, and I may just take your side. However, your religious beliefs are not proofs: they're religious belief, just as your "Palm Sunday," reference shows.
Prove it to me on scientific grounds. It's going to be difficult, as you'll need to provide empirical proof of the existence of a soul.
6
Clearly, this is not a fact.
2
All babies, ever, have already been born.
Fetuses are not "innocent" as they do not have the capacity for innocence OR guilt. Surely a fetus in a pregnancy that causes the death of the pregnant woman is not "guilty" - therefore a fetus cannot be "innocent" either.
Stay out of the sacred civil, human and Constitutional rights of innocent female US citizens - the only uterus that is any of your concern is YOURS.
1
"I, personally, don't believe in abortion -
But, I will uphold the law."
And, here, in this article, is why that statement is so dangerous.
What if the law changes?
Implied in that statement is that the speaker will uphold ANY LAW that is passed.....
.....including one that states, as this one does: NO abortion EVER, under ANY circumstances - including RAPE, INCEST or the probable DEATH OF A WOMAN.
The person who says "I don't believe in abortion, but......" is willing to uphold ANY law.
And, if they are willing to uphold ANY law, then why stop there?
If that speaker's group decides to lower the age of consent to 7, as it was under the Catholic Church even after the Reformation, then of course they will go along with that.
Both the Bible and the Koran say it is legal to stone women.
It is legal to own slaves.
Is that what this corporate/military/religious complex will demand next, for if the laws state a woman and her doctor are to be jailed for "murder", a legal term, then is that what these people will agree with?
They are already agreeing with rape and incest and the deaths of women that could easily be avoided.
But, somewhere in their universe, that's okay because they "don't believe in abortion but are willing to uphold the law."
Don't.
If you don't believe in a law - ANY LAW - then have the guts, honesty, dignity, humanity to SAY SO!
Here: You do it like this:
I believe in a woman's right to decide on ANY matter of reproduction at ANY age, ANY income, ANY status.
3
Also by design, such combination of shock and whittle[1], like other moral laws, doesn't affect Republicans themselves, who can and often do use fear and lawyers to extract forced abortions from the women they impregnate. When they don't get the women to comply, they go find a Stormy on the side to spite them with.
Of course, the single biggest reason we need abortions (and birth control before that becomes an issue) to be not just legal, but medically and legally recommended for all, is that Earth can't even handle all the people it *currently* has—especially when enough of them are kleptomaniac fossil-burners who tip the climate toward runaway warming and chaos. The polar ice melts, Arctic record highs, and strange airmass shifts terrify sane people, but bring sadistic joy to those who can now drill-baby-drill next to polar bears as they flee south from all the calving.
[1] i.e. the shock of full-abortion-ban bills, and the whittle of the ones that then seem reasonable.
1
The first thing I notice is that these bills do not include funding - possible life-time -for some woman and their children who will be destitute if they are not allowed to have an abortion. Feed the hungry and clothe
1
Where are these people (mostly men) when the child is born and the mother needs financial and medical services? Better yet, when men go to prison, lets automatically perform vasectomies on them. At least that will stop some unwanted pregnancies.
-- guns are legal, abortions are legal -- the rights to both are far too often abused --
The only way to once-and-for-all stop the anti-abortion fanatics is to pass a Constitutional amendment that bans anti-abortion laws. Unfortunately, the probability of this happening is the same as the probability that sane gun laws will be passed anytime soon.
1
You can be against a whole lot of things that are legal including drinking, doing drugs and cheating on your spouse, but you have a right to drink, to purchase medical marijuana and it's between you and your partner if you cheat. If you could get "religion" out of this issue there would still be separation of church and state. SEPARATION.
I very much resent having other people's religious beliefs shoved down my throat even though I am far too old to be carrying a fetus. It's not for many months, an "unborn baby." Words are dangerous. Every time someone says, "unborn baby" -- they are selling their own brand of propaganda.
3
Back to the future.
Wealthy women will simply go to another country for an abortion as it used to be.
Poor women with no financial means to support a child on her own will be stuck with children with mental or physical problems.
And no law will require that the male who fathered that child support it, even if it involved rape or him just using protection to make sure the female didn't get pregnant.
An even greater danger for women's rights over their own bodies will be if Trump gets to nominate another justice and the court on its own determines that an “unborn human” would be considered a person. In that case abortions would be illegal and that would be the law of the land.
2
If anyone thinks the sorry excuses of humans that call themselves leaders in the Ohio General Assembly care one whips of a sliver about the United States Constitution, think again.
This is why I laugh when comments here describe John Kasich as a “moderate!”
Let’s make him POTUS!
Kasich has both written and passed more anti-abortion laws than any other governor.
He has closed HALF of all women’s clinics in Ohio that provide abortions.
He is worse than Trump as he hides his agenda.
3
Once again, we see that Republicans are a drag on humanity. That is the message that progressives need to start spreading -- that there is no such thing as a good Republican. One cannot be Republican and a decent human being at the same time.
1
Sounds like more people should be using effective birth control.
I blame women who must hate themselves and other women for allowing a Republican trifecta of men who hate women to be in office.
Not all pregnancys should be brought to term.
We have a special needs child in the family and it's rough to raise them when money is tight and they need so much medical help, and one must fight a school system to avoid the child being warehoused.
A special needs child is yours till the day you die, so forget about retirement.
A legislator that will send you thoughts and prayers after you are fired for taking off so much time to deal with situations that always pop up.
Prayer circles don't pay for uncovered expenses, the rent, or put food in the pantry.Or deal with the resentment of the other kids while you are always putting out a fire.
Sisters, get your act together, for those without a uterus don't seem capable of it. They feel the ladies in "A Handmaids Tale" have it too easy.
Send money to those opposing those that introduced this hateful ignorant legislation. NARL is on that list.
2
Amazing. Let's kill doctors who assist with abortions, imprison women who do not want to carry these babies, so babies can be born to go to school where they are just randomly shot because second amendment rights, however misinterpreted, are sacred. Way to go pro-lifers!
2
Supposing a test mirrowing amneocentesis could determine whether fetus will be definitely born LGBT leading to immense abortion spike. Ethical action?
1
Who does it serve to force women to bear as many as they are able until they are dead?
That was the "Gold Standard" before science and medicine delivered us The Pill and Safe Abortion.
Well, that was then - what about 'now'?
Well, the Federal Government wouldn't have to pay a higher minimum wage.
No employer would have to pay "equal pay".
The unions could be utterly destroyed.
Let's face it, this country can't even take care of the one's they already have .... Wait! Wasn't that the argument against all those irresponsible women, popping out all those little ones that they couldn't take care of????
Oh, I see.... if an individual woman has more children than she can feed.... then she's irresponsible.
But a government that pops out more citizens than it can provide for?
That's an irresponsible government - right?
The government would rather sneer at women and girls who never got Sex Ed.
Never had a car to get her to Planned Parenthood.
Was put up in a hospital where tubal ligations are NEVER performed.
(That would be 1 in 6 hospital beds in this nation because we allow the Catholic Church to own our health care and they insist on the right to discriminate as they will:
No abortions
No Tubals
No vacestomies
No Morning After Pill
Whether one is a patient there or works there, God Rules - forget what that stupid Constitution says!)
So, a welfare mother is irresponsible - but NEVER a government doing the same thing?
Is that how it works?
This stinks of a rigged system to me.
1
Welcome to the United States of Gilead!
4
Why is this story not on the front page of your paper?
While the editorial is excellent, have a reporter write a full article and put it front and center.
2
Ban abortion now? Christian Sharia courts next? A new Inquisition? Which religious sect will be serving as prosecutors? The Roman Catholic clergy that concealed its child molesting priests? The Prosperity Preachers? Only those without sin should be eligible to cast the first stone.
Properly, these Republican politicians should only ban abortion for all males. They have no business controlling women's bodies or decisions.
8
"an unborn human" ?
Is that not an oxymoron?
4
Why yes, yes, it is. It's like calling oneself an "undead corpse".
Great news! Keep it coming, GOP, keep the right-wing extremism coming!
Keep limiting women's rights and playing god with their lives. See how that goes down in November.
Keep calling child gun control advocates who saw their friends gunned down in your armed camp of America "skinhead lesbians". Let's see how they vote next election.
Keep passing tax cuts for the rich and stiffing the American worker with your "pro-business" legislation. We'll see who comes out to vote next time.
Tank the deficit so you can deprive workers of their healthcare and Social Security. That should bring "the base" out to the polls.
Keep poisoning the environment and rewarding polluters. We'll see who is rewarded come November.
Keep it coming, GOP. Keep on moving further right, conservatives. Keep doubling down, Trump. Keep spreading lies, Fox News. There's a big Democratic meteor heading for your Cretaceous policies, ideals, and party, so live it up now, dinosaurs...the mammals are coming. Just because you don't believe in evolution doesn't mean it ain't happening.
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Hey Ohio let's take it one step further and protect life before conception -- because sperm are alive let's decide that life begins at ejaculation. That means that every man who releases sperm without impregnating a woman is committing murder. Perhaps men in Ohio will be able to avoid prosecution if they have to have a signed affidavit from their significant other attesting to their appropriate conduct.
5
A government that can say, "you can't have an abortion" is the same government that can say, "you MUST have an abortion if we want you to.”
Any government that can say "no abortion" is saying it has the right to decide what it wants to do with your body. (And this could apply to men, not just women.) As such, it would have the right to also mandate that you get an abortion. You get no say in the matter. Your body literally belongs to them, and they can do whatever they want with it.
That is not hyperbole. That is not panic thinking. Lest you think, "oh, this would never happen here," then I suggest you learn about the history of forced sterilization that's already taken place in this country's history. It's been predominantly carried out against the poor and other minorities. I have a list of readings below you can start with. (They were provided to me by a history professor.)
-------------------------------------------
Susan Currell, Popular Eugenics
Martha C. Ward, Poor women, Powerful men: America's Great Experiment in Family Planning
Philip Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A history of Involuntary Sterilization in the US
Carole Ruth McCann, Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945
Edward J. Larson, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South
6
The Republican Party, Proudly putting women back in their rightful place! Barefoot, Pregnant and back in the kitchen fetching these nice men sammiches n' beer!
7
No condom, no choice.
Condoms are ineffective as birth control. The break, they split. The pregnancy rate is high. Women need and deserve effective birth control but the rabid right, religious and political, calls the IUD an abortifacient. For decades the Right said they were only against abortion, meanwhile we see the naked face of the plan to outlaw birth control. This is far more complicated that having a spare condom in your wallet in your back pocket. Get real.
2
I'm sure before any such bill is voted on, the Republican legislators will amend it so that they and their extramarital girlfriends are exempted.
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You can’t stop abortion; you can only make them dangerous for women.
And that’s good enough for Republicans.
6
Yes. You can't stop abortion. You can only make it dangerous. For poor women. For women who aren't rich. For young women.
2
Legislation to protect the unborn but nothing to protect them once they are born. GOP - protect babies but deny them healthcare (even in the womb), education, healthy food, housing, clothing and a decent shot at a good job. This is not pro life - it is a breeding program.
2
Totally unconstitutional. Are you Ohioans really proud of your authoritarian/misogynist state? I lived there, at one time, and went to college there. It was a good, fairly open minded, place, back then. Women should avoid any and all transactions with Ohio. There should be a march on the state house. Shame on your government.
5
How about imprisonment for any legislator who asks his mistress to have an abortion?
“Sauce for the goose; sauce for the philanderer.”
4
And what is the punishment for the men who impregnate the women?
3
How many abortions should a mother be allowed ? 10, 20, 30 ?
SS (would be more approppriate)--As many as she wishes, since it's her body, not yours.
3
The Republican party is in thrall to the medieval concepts of the far religious right which has no problems with a man who consorts with porn stars and has no problem speaking of and treating women like inferior beings. That this man stepped out on his wife while she was giving birth to his child should stop his Evangelical supporters cold. Instead these folks cheer on a man up to his neck in sin because he now has become pro-life after having favored Roe and the right to choose for some three decades prior.
Trump's election has allowed him , in step with a Republican Congress that subverted the Constitution , to appoint and nominate Neil Gorsuch , a corporate bootlicker and religious fanatic. He will undoubtedly support the baker who wishes to hide behind a Bible to discriminate against gays. And , on the corporate side , he will provide the majority vote to gut public unions.
Mr. Gorsuch' religious beliefs will supercede his oath to support the Constitution and , in the words of Pope Pence , will relegate Roe v. Wade to the "dust bin where it belongs."
Well over one half of American citizens are either women or members of the LBGT population or both.
That is an incredible bloc vote. Unless you folks are content to be treated as third class citizens , criminals , and dirt under the feet of a Republican party that is rampantly misogynistic , homophobic, and leans toward theocracy , let your voices be heard loudly and clearly.
Vote the haters out !
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Lawrence--Elsewhere on this site, we are informed that many Muslims are turning their backs on Islamism, in favor of Christianity. Huh? Frying pan/fire? Just got to have that magical thinking. By the way, there is NO reference to abortion in the Bible, but lots of happy news about rape and child abuse.
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I wonder if these men who vote for these laws have ever thought of it this way: I'd like to rape all of their sons, take the resulting sperm to sperm banks, and have all of their resulting unwanted children sue them for child support through the age of 18.
This is my black mirror fanfic. Droves and droves of politicians' sons who were raped in their sleep in college being suddenly confronted with children forced upon them.
It seems the use of the word "popular" in the last paragraph is causing many readers difficulty. It appears the dictionary meaning "widely accepted," which is still completely valid and not obsolete, was intended.
However, perhaps to make the statement clearer, the editors could substitute "widely accepted" before the sun comes up Monday morning.
3
Or publish the statistic that one in three women has an abortion.
1
This entire effort is a lie. Their own most ardent supporters are once again the Republicans' first and worst victims.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/15/1582937/-Why-the-Right-Needs...
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In response to WPLMMT:
EWTN is a Catholic TV network. Enough said.
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Right wing zealots are like zombies. They are relentless and keep on coming. They never stop; never give up. The only way to stop them is to vote them out of office.
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Could there possibly be a bigger bunch of hypocrites than these conservative republican religious fanatics. Blame the woman and make her suffer for her crime of getting pregnant when she can not deal with a pregnancy for what ever reason. The loathing I have for these narrow minded sanctimonious right to life freaks knows no bounds.
If these MEN were so right to life why do they promote so many wars that kill so many innocent men, women and children and then have the unmitigated gall to cheer on the likes of Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.
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Women of Ohio, start organizing. Let’s see several hundred thousand of you protesting in Columbus. Get the men on board too. Withold sex if you have to.
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Good, I hope they finally criminalize all forms abortion and then all oral contraception. May as well be like Ireland where women have to die of ectopic pregancy. Women got the right to vote, they blew it.
Vote them out!
1
Well, this is a strange thought... I am alive because my grandfather's first wife died from an ectopic pregnancy. Should I be glad that abortion was unavailable to her?
No.
Should it be available to other women in her situation?
What an insanely stupid question.
2
It’s easy to vilify the nutcase legislators who want to return to 1955. It’s harder to blame the voters of Ohio. But we should. The stupid, paranoid, hateful and delusional among us elect these people, over and over. We get what our fellow citizens want.
5
Republicans only want to ban abortions until they need one for their mistress. Their hypocrisy is laughable.
4
Those anti-abortion laws are all about control of the woman by man. Period! If the Republicans were really in favor of life, they will stand to the NRA and adopted law to keep the guns out of the hands of terrorists, gangsters, gang members, mentally ill persons.
1
Just as the Governor was on Sunday morning News show dangling the idea of entering the 2020 Race against Trump.....
Chicken or Egg?
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Would DT be “anti abortion” if Stormy Daniels got pregnant? After all, she’s the second woman to allege this week he doesn’t use condoms in extra marital affairs while having a recent born at home. Would SD also deserve “some form of punishment” if she did? Hypocrite.
1
More insanity created by men who want to control women's lives. Time to march again ladies. Just think, it is the great pretender in the white house who used unprotected sex and is agains abortion. This likely applies to all of the men who are creating these laws. Unprotected sex, no birth control, no abortion and absolutely no responsibility for the results of this encounter. Makes one wonder....
1
Wonder how many of the many Trump girl friends ended up having abortions?
3
Let's let the Catholics on the Supreme Court decide.
Why not just ban sex? That's easier to defeat in court. Then they can sneak in birth control, abortions, drinking, smoking, dope, organic vegetables, and super lotto. Totally idiotic, but that's my point.
1
Typically Republican, concern for the fetus from conception to birth. After that, the baby is on it’s own.
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Brilliant strateg y. One wonders how we survived as a civilization pre-1972 when murdering the helpless, unborn innocents in their mother's womb was actually unconstitutional? Imagine that! We had a society that once actually protected the most helpless among existed a mere 46 years ago. Those were the dark ages. My how we have "progressed!"
Women died, that's how we "survived as a civilization." Women died in childbirth, or while pregnant in a high-risk pregnancy, or from having an illegal abortion, or by suicide. Women who were pregnant and shouldn't have been just DIED.
1
Just remember: if men could get pregnant, abortion would be available at CVS
3
The Republicans impugn Islam falsely as being a religion of terrorists and extremes. They condemn Sharia law as barbaric. To those fanatical Christian hypocrites in Ohio and our other 49 states, I ask: Is not risking the health - and life - of a pregnant woman also extreme, also a form of torture? What is the difference between this polluting of Christ's words and a nation led by tyrants who have total control over an individual's rights and freedoms? This is not a theocracy...yet.
Now, I will speak as a woman who is appalled by a bunch of controlling, frustrated misogynists AND their female counterparts who have a warped perception of women's identities. Stay away from my body and my daughters. How dare you, how dare you desire to criminalize women and their doctors for a decision that is no one else's to make. Be careful of that stone you throw, because I can guarantee you that it will boomerang back at you with a vengeance.
2
Given his sexual history and proclivities, it is inconceivable that there are not a (large?) number of abortions bobbing in trump*s wake.
1
My questions for Donald Trump:
1. How many abortions for your mistresses have you paid for?
2. How many abortions for your sons’ mistresses have you paid for?
3. Why are you interested in banning a procedure you’ve availed yourself of many times in the past?
2
Here they go again. Need to raise money? Want to arouse the base? Lookie here, dummies, we're banning abortions! Money comes pouring in, another bumper sticker gets slapped on the mini-van...then...some liberal, commie, anti-god, activist court rules that it can't be done (something stupid about rowing and wading) and things quiet down, until the next time.
Insanity. Brought to you, as usual, by GOP.
2
I give up on being PC---Those who want a total ban on all abortions are deplorables.
5
This makes me so sad and angry at the same time.
How come this is still a thing in the US? I know the answer to this question by the way. But it still makes me very, very sad.
How come women aren't allowed to make these decisions by themselves?
What gives bold, old, white dudes the right to make such choices for women? No one undergoes an abortion for fun, right? Also: if people are pro life for whatever reason they can make their own choice to keep the baby. Also, if not: you can get an abortion.
I'm also wondering: Is quality of life not a thing? For baby and mother?
What I find so interesting is that for a lot of Americans the government is to make as little as possible choices for them. That's freedom. But why should politicians have the right to make such important decisions then?
I just don't get it. Maybe that's because I'm from Europe, Amsterdam to be exact. We had these conversations many years ago en it's never been an issue sinds.
228
If you think the issue of abortion is to prevent abortions, then the actions of Republicans does not make sense. For example, why would they work to prevent access to birth control if they wanted to prevent abortion.
But if you realize the real motive for the anti-abortion movement is to get voters passionate and voting Republican, then it is very logical. You can see that it is very effective.
6
"How come this is still a thing in the US?"
Because the religuous right wing is absolutely fanatical about it's dogma. They will not give up until they have forced everyone to follow their dictates. The fact we have an ultra-fundamentalist ultra-right winger as VP and a willing puppet as "president" is horrifying. The fact they appointed an ultra-fundamentalist Ultra right winger to the Supreme Court is horrifying. We are nearly to the point of becoming a backward ultra fundamentalist ultra right wing country. People really need to pay attention to this or you will one day wake up to find ALL your rights taken away and replaced by ultra right wing religious fundamentalist dogma.
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@Suzanneke----------------------The old white dudes want to prevent women from challenging their " holy" importance. They fear the possibility that women might outrank them somehow, if not suppressed. It is a serious but common neurosis here in the states, among males.
4
Ohio is waging a war against women.
6
If you believe Trump never paid for a single abortion since 1970, you probably believe he's the best, the greatest president ever. Lincoln? Washington? Lightweights.
4
That you believe that the 2nd Amendment's explicit protections can be disregarded while also believing that abortions are protected by the penumbras and emanations of the Due Process Clause says everything there is to say about your intellectual honesty.
Can you show me either science of where in the Bible that it says a fertilized egg is human being?
As for the Second Amendment, let's go back to the Founding Fathers. Everyone gets to have a musket.
The anti-abortion zealots are not pro life but rather anti -woman 's rights. It is not shocking that Donald Trump supports theses fanatics since he is utterly cynical in catering to the religious right's extreme positions. He has no concern about woman and their ability to control their bodies. Before his Presidential run he was pro choice. Now with the utmost callousness, he
just wants the votes of his base, the religious right; so he changes his position. Let's arrest a pregnant woman and her physician for murder for having the choice to have an abortion.
What a coward and amoral person he truly is!
3
Is there any doubt that the Taliban has taken over Ohio?
7
So Ohio wants to be like Ireland, where they'll let a young mother die(and the fetus with her) rather than do an abortion?
8
The abortion "debate" is all about one thing, and one thing only: male supremacy. Patriarchy is the most ancient and insidious tyranny.
9
Abortion is the Republicans go-to issue. They've been found out to be for the rich, for the Russians, for the AK-15 owners, for the hateful racists, for the men that 'grab' women, for the rich (yes, i said it twice cause it's the number one 'cause').
We need better education and contraception and reduction in unwanted pregnancies. That's the best place to try and limit abortions. Democrats must talk the talk and walk this walk. Abortion is a real and emotional issue. But, Republicans are being found out for all the 'fake' morality and spirituality their leaders have lied about for decades.
Rats on a sinking ship, trying to use abortion as a last chance play. Rats.
6
The Christo-fascists have an agenda Trump supports. They include, principally, banning all abortion, birth control, plus they want school prayer and the right to discriminate against gays. Trump supports this agenda 100% so the Christo-fascists don't care about anything else.
Being anti-abortion has been low hanging fruit for the Republicans who need the white identity and Christo-fascist vote to support their own aims of creating a kleptocracy.
In a perverse way, overturning Roe might wake up the sleepy middle to the real aims of Trump's base. If they don't wake up the Bronze Age beliefs of the Evangelical community will be the law of the land and make me very glad I lived when I did.
1
Now the inhumanity of the anti-abortion movement is trying to turn the U.S. into one of the leading violators of human rights. The hypocrisy of the “Pro-Life” movement was revealed in the March for Our Children, when a person with a “Pro-Life: Anti-Assault Weapons” sign raised concerns. The reality is that this person is pro-life after the womb, in contrast the extremist anti-abortionists who are only pro-life until a baby is born.
Combined with the anti-LGBT actions of the liar-in-chief, continuing racism, religious extremism and prejudice, mass murders of children and their teachers, and xenophobia that has is being both tacitly and openly promoted by our government; How can we condemn North Korea, China and Russia when we our government is so evil?
3
First strike nuclear war? Good foreign policy. A woman wanting an abortion? Murder. That's Republican logic.
3
That is right, ban all abortions and have more unwanted, neglected children."
1
I don't know the composition of the Ohio state legislature. But let me take a wild guess-old white men?
5
Since Nature dictates that women cannot get pregnant on their own (New Testament stories aside), then if women are to be "punished" for trying to get an abortion, the men who failed to use a condom and got them pregnant in the first place should surely suffer alongside them in equal measure.
Let's see how they like, say, 9 months of hormone treatment to kill off their sex drive. One would think that'll teach such irresponsible and selfish human beings to consider the long-term implications of their gleeful sexual abandon.
2
Fine, do it! Then I propose a ban on all heterosexual sexual activity in the state of Ohio. No abortion rights? No rights to have sex with me.
2
A woman's right to privacy is absolute. If anti-choice Republicans want to serve human beings, why not improve the lives of the millions of children living in dire poverty? Why not put stern gun control legislation in place to stop the weekly school shootings that take place? ANY misogynistic politician who supports anti-choice and anti-woman legislation but opposes gun control and the social safety net should not receive a single vote from any American voter who cares about children.
5
For a man who admittedly had un-protected sex with young women I find the position of the president puzzling.
1
pro life does not care about the fetus before or child after birth, their only agenda is CONTROLLING women and their body functions.
3
We are getting closer to civil war every day.
4
If a fetus threatens the life of the mother, can it be brought up on attempted murder charges?
5
Last I checked, men are 50% responsible for 100% of pregnancies. In a society that denies women full reproductive liberty, every man must be prepared to forfeit to the state his literal bodily autonomy for a minimum of nine months (and up to 18 years) each time he unleashes his ejaculate within striking distance of a viable ovum. It’s only just.
5
"correctly noting that some women would be driven to back-alley providers"
Not so correct. Some will go to front-alley abortionists.
1
The republican war on women continues. Vote them out.
5
A law that gives a fetus full rights as a woman was tried in Ireland. It failed in the long run and may be repeal soon.
When pregnant women start dying as one did in Galway then public opinion will see the folly of the anti-abortion agenda but by then thousands of women will have perished. Thousands of parents will have lost their daughters, thousands of husbands will have lost their wives, thousands of children will have lost their mothers either to death or prison.
Absolutely insane.
The anti-abortion movement is a misogynistic, woman hating movement cloaked in sanctimonious platitudes about respecting human life.
The Catholic Church, nor any other male dominated religion does not respect human life. It never has and never will. They are death cults.
This is about power. The power to control life and death. If women have that power simply by the nature of their biology then they are true creators and more godlike than men....if so then where does that leave a male dominated church and what does that say about notions of a male godhead. If god is any sex, alpha and omega, creator and destroyer, then female she is, The Goddess. And this threatens the foundation of modern Christian ideas of a male god and everything that follows thereafter.
5
The juxtaposition of an editorial decrying legislated limits on abortion rights, rights only tenuously identified in the “emanations and penumbra” of the constitution, while loudly calling for the gutting of the rights explicitly guaranteed in the second amendment is striking and strikingly similar to your full-throated defense of the rights of a free press while simultaneously calling for limits to free political speech. What you really advocate is the protection of the rights you like and the abolition of those you find outdated.
Sorry, Christopher, but increasing restrictions on gun ownership in no way “guts” the second amendment - it merely recognizes the sovereign right of individuals to life, the right to live without fear of being randomly slaughtered in your daily life.
Anyone who argues otherwise and calls himself a strict adherent to constitutional originalism is pretending the early citizens lived in a permanent war zone as we are trending towards. They knew that guns were for hunting and military purposes.
1
That fetus that women have inside of them when they're pregnant IS NOT A PERSON. It's a growth, not unlike a tumor. Not pleasant to think about, but true nevertheless. Removing it cannot be equivalent to killing a person because the fetus IS NOT A PERSON. To force a woman to do ANYTHING with her body that she does not want to do should be a crime, and illegal. It is something that woiuldn't exist if it weren't millions of self righteous not all that bright people who are so clueless and naive that they believe somehow that they'll exist somewhere after they die. The sheer staggering amount of evidence that this is not true simply escapes them, but it doesn't prevent them from trying to force this and other beliefs, like a fetus being a person, on others.
4
What is even more bizarre is that there's a correlation between being extremely anti-choice and opposing any kind of sex education that even hints at contraception. In El Salvador, a young woman whose intended pregnancy ended in miscarriage was sentenced to life in prison. Are we becoming a banana republic?
3
Ban guns. Ban abortions. Everybody happy now?
Didn’t think so.
"A fetus is not a human being": this is a very specious statement.
Your fingernail/drop of blood/etc. might have DNA just like a fetus does, but no credible scientist will call your fingernail an organism. By any objective definition of the word, a fetus is an organism, and it belongs to the human species. If you want to say it's not a *person*, fine; "person" is a legal term & is ultimately up to the government to define. But regardless of your position on abortion's legality, human life *does* begin at conception.
That's not religious dogma; I say this as an irreligious agnostic. You don't need the Bible to reach this conclusion, you just need to read an embryology textbook.
You use the wrong terminology when defining those, like Ohio, who attempt to abolish Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade gave the right to women to choose what they do to their bodies.
Therefore the correct label is "anti-choice." Most people are against abortion, but do not want the government to make the choice for them.
Please start using the correct term.
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