Why Ohio’s 20-week abortion ban is still fucking terrifying

Pro-choice activists fear it may just be a diversion tactic


Ohio governor and everyone’s favorite snake in the grass John Kasich vetoed the heartbeat bill yesterday. The flagrantly unconstitutional bill would have forbidden abortions once a fetal heartbeat could be detected — in other words, as early as 6 weeks gestation and before the majority of women are even aware they’re pregnant.

The second-term Republican, however, did sign into law a second bill, a GOP-backed measure banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. It provides an exception for saving the mother’s life — but none for rape, incest, or infant abnormalities.

In his accompanying statement, Kasich did what he does best: pretend to be moderate by claiming he values human life, yet show little regard for the potentially ugly circumstances that may have placed both mother and child in that position the first place.

“I agree with Ohio Right to Life and other leading, pro-life advocates that Senate Bill 127 [the 20-week ban] is the best, most legally sound and sustainable approach to protecting the sanctity of human life,” Kasich said. The new law forbids termination of “a human pregnancy of a pain-capable unborn child.”

While some staunch pro-lifers like Janet Folger, president of Faith2Action, an anti-abortion group pressing for the heartbeat bill, stomped their feet, fellow snakes like Ohio Right to Life President, Mike Gonidakis, praised Kasich’s moderation in light of the “the current make-up of a radically pro-abortion Supreme Court.”

Pro-choice activists, on the other hand, remain reasonably unsettled. While a 20-week ban may appear more acceptable than a 6-week ban, they are skeptical the latter bill may have simply been a diversion tactic in appointing one that may actually stand more of a chance in weakening Roe under the right court structure — a nightmare that could become a reality in just a single Trump term.

NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio executive director Kellie Copeland said in a statement, “John Kasich is treating women’s health care like a game. He thinks that by vetoing one abortion ban Ohioans will not notice that he has signed another … Once a woman has made the decision to end a pregnancy, she needs access to safe and legal abortion care in her community. Kasich’s actions today will fall hardest on low-income women, women of color, and young women.”

 

Anti-abortion activists have long pushed for 20-week abortion bans under the bogus claim that fetuses are able to feel pain at that point in gestation. Though this widespread falsity has been proven wrong by medical knowledge of fetal development — specifically a review of available data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 2005 that determined fetuses are unlikely to have the capacity to experience pain until the third trimester — 17 other states have already passed bans that mirror this one. Mostly aided by the notion of viability, or an infant’s capability to survive outside the womb.

The term ‘viability’ has become as commonplace for pro-lifers as ‘transfer agreements,’ a tactic used by conservative politicians to slowly strip away an entire state’s abortion providers. Though pro-lifers argue it begins at 20-weeks, viability does not typically occur until at least the 24 to 26-week mark. Technically, Roe v. Wade protects a woman’s right to abortion before viability, meaning if the Supreme Court upheld the 20-week ban, it would be violating one of the most fundamental principles of the ruling.

While more challenges will inevitably arise in the near future, it would take a lot for Roe v. Wade to be irreparably damaged in the next four years. Trump would have to elect at least two to three anti-abortion justices. A possibility, sure, but examples like the sweeping Supreme Court victory over restrictive state laws in Texas should offer enough sustainable hope for women’s reproductive rights activists everywhere.

In the meantime, pro-choicers should be prepared for the concept of viability to continue to resurface in the discourse. When it does, stories like that of Sheva Guy, a Cincinnati woman who was forced to travel 300 miles to Chicago after being refused an abortion by Ohio providers upon learning her baby was diagnosed with a fatal spinal abnormality in her 22nd week, will prove valuable.

Until then, neither side has a reason to get too comfortable anytime soon.