Columbus — Ohio lawmakers today introduced a new bill to ban all abortions in Ohio. A version of this bill introduced last session would have charged physicians and pregnant people with murder. The bill was introduced by Rep. Candice Keller (R-Middletown) and Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville).
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland said: “Every abortion ban and medically dubious regulation shares the same goal as this bill — to outlaw abortion and strip Ohioans of their reproductive freedoms. These politicians want a total ban on abortion, to classify any abortion as murder. They want prosecutors to charge people who provide or receive abortion care with aggravated murder, which carries the death penalty. They would also remove protections for pregnant people who experience issues during pregnancy, and place individuals experiencing a miscarriage at risk of criminal prosecution. If all of that weren’t bad enough, these politicians don’t care that these kinds of bans could also ban some contraceptives and fertility treatments. Ohioans won’t surrender their bodily autonomy to these extremists.”
The bill would likely impact prescription birth control, intrauterine devices (IUDs), vaginal rings, contraceptive patches, and injections. Similar legislation in other states was also determined to prohibit various forms of fertility treatments if they result in the production of fertilized eggs that are not implanted in a uterus.
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