On Wednesday, Ohio Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban abortion entirely, with zero exceptions for rape and incest, and establish fetal personhood, while also branding abortion-seekers as committing “homicide.” (Abortion is currently allowed up to 20 weeks.) And they don’t stop there.
The Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act, introduced by Reps. Levi Dean (R-Xenia) and Johnathan Newman (R-Troy) also seeks to ban access to in vitro fertilization and certain contraceptives, including IUDs. Like the hundreds of anti-abortion bills introduced by GOP lawmakers since Roe was overturned, this bill seemingly wants to take the role of parenthood from those who want it and force it upon those who don’t, who aren’t ready, and/or are under duress.
“This is the most extreme and anti-life legislation that you can imagine,” Kellie Copeland, executive director of Abortion Forward, told ABC News. “It would strip Ohioans of their constitutionally guaranteed right to bodily autonomy, and that’s the goal of this legislation.”
The bill was sponsored, in part, by End Abortion Ohio and its president, Austin Beigel. According to Beigel, the Constitution actually does support life starting at conception—I must’ve skipped that day in my AP U.S. Government and Civics class—and says contraceptives and fertility treatments violate that standard. He believes the issue is that people have become too comfortable with deciding if they want to be parents, whether by terminating a pregnancy or taking treatments that ease the egg fertilization process. Thank god Ohio has Him to show us all the way.
Although the bill isn’t receiving large amounts of support from other members of the Ohio Republican Party, Beigel remains adamant that it could challenge the 2023 legislation in the U.S. Supreme Court as part of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. He also sounds excited about the inevitable legal challenges and hopes the bill might even make its way to the Supreme Court.
“[It] is a very, very simple and beautiful piece of legislation in that all it does is identify all human beings as persons deserving equal protection of the law, both born humans and pre-born humans,” Beigel told ABC News. Reminder that “pre-born humans” is not a medical term (or even a thing), and what Beigel is describing is fetal personhood.
Beigel also insists the bill doesn’t explicitly outlaw IVF, but that the procedure would just naturally stop happening if the bill passes, since it would afford equal protections to fetuses. “IVF thrives on its ability to treat human beings as something lesser,” Beigel told The Columbus Dispatch. “When you do identify all human beings as people under the law, what will happen is IVF will effectively end itself.” Great!
In December, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio recorded a 200% increase in IUD insertions following President Donald Trump’s win. If you live in Ohio and didn’t get one then, I’d suggest making your appointment now—just in case Beigel gets his way.
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