LOVELAND MAGAZINE

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Tag: failed abortions

  • Abortion bill passage could bring clinic closures in Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio

    Abortion bill passage could bring clinic closures in Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio

    BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal DECEMBER 9, 2021 12:50 AM

    The newest abortion bill to pass the Ohio House could spell the closure of Southwest Ohio clinics and the criminalization of doctors.

    Despite multiple Democrat attempts to amend the bill and remove the language that would affect doctors’ ability to transfer patients from abortion facilities, Senate Bill 157 passed Wednesday afternoon along party lines, 59-33.

    State Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, attempted to bring in the same amendment she tried to include in committee hearings on the bill, to remove the bill’s provision prohibiting physicians who are affiliated with and funded by public medical schools and institutions from having transfer agreement variances with abortion clinics.

    This would effectively close clinics in Southwest Ohio, Russo emphasized in Wednesday’s House session.

    “As a reminder to my colleagues, these consulting physicians that are required in order to get a variance from these transfer agreements, do not actually perform abortion services,” Russo said. “They are only consulted by the facility in the very rare case when there is an emergency and the need to transfer a patient to the hospital.”

    After the bill was passed, Planned Parenthood’s Southwest Ohio region confirmed this would in fact be true, and is something they plan to fight against.

    “Stripping abortion care from Southwest Ohio will cause havoc that disproportionately impacts our communities,” said Kersha Deibel, CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio. “This isn’t the end, and we will continue to fight — abortion is still legal in Ohio.”

    The organization said the closure of Planned Parenthood and Women’s Med of Dayton through this bill “would make Cincinnati the biggest metropolitan (area) in Ohio without an abortion provider.”

    The bill was originally slated by sponsors to prevent doctors from allowing a fetus born alive after an attempted abortion to die without medical intervention, and to create another reporting system for “failed abortion” cases.

    The chairman of the House committee that passed SB 157, state Rep. Susan Manchester, R-Waynesfield, stood in support of the bill on the House floor on Wednesday.

    “This is an important piece of legislation that provides a system to protect infants that are born alive after an abortion by enforcing the administration of prevailing standards of care that apply to every child,” Manchester said.

    Testimony made throughout the Senate and House committee process by abortion and pro-choice advocates focused on current law that already prohibits doctors from failing to provide care in a life-saving situation, and reporting requirements already in place by the Ohio Department of Health.

    Opponents of the bill also said “failed abortions” are a rare occurrence, as shown by state data.

    The bill became more controversial once the amendment on physician variance agreements was added, after which abortion advocates called the bill “dangerous,” even saying the bill would impact complicated pregnancies in hospitals, not just abortions in surgical facilities.

    Another amendment tabled by the GOP majority attempted to remove the criminal charges physicians face for not following documentation procedure created in the bill. State Rep. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, presented the amendment just as she did in the previous House committee.

    In the bill, doctors could face felony charges for failing to provide care to infants after an attempted abortion (something that is already a part of Ohio law), and for failing to file the proper paperwork on “failed abortions” as prescribed in the bill.

    Liston said the bill impacts “futile” medical situations in which resuscitation of the baby isn’t scientifically possible and keeping the parent from holding the child only adds to the trauma of the situation.

    “The only situations this bill impacts are those emergency circumstances where the woman’s life is at risk or there is a serious complication with the fetus,” Liston said. “These are desired pregnancies and devastating situations to all involved.”

    State Rep. Kristen Boggs, D-Columbus, tried to add an amendment for workplace protection for pregnant Ohioans, and state Rep. Stephanie Howse, D-Cleveland, also tried to amend the bill to make workplace accommodations for pregnancies. Also attempted as an amendment was the inclusion of paid family leave, which has been a measure state Rep. Janine Boyd, D-Cleveland Heights, has championed for multiple general assemblies.

    All amendments were tabled along party lines.

    The bill is headed to conference committee because of a technical change added during hearings in the House Families, Aging & Human Services Committee, and could head to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk in the next week.

    DeWine has consistently approved of anti-abortion legislation, so it seems unlikely he will veto the bill.

    Abortion is legal up to 22 weeks gestation in Ohio.

  • Newest abortion restricting bill heading to full House vote after committee approval

    Newest abortion restricting bill heading to full House vote after committee approval

    BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal DECEMBER 8, 2021 12:55 AM

    Anti-abortion demonstrators march. (Photo by Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom).

    The Ohio House will consider a new abortion regulation that would keep some doctors from being able to work with abortion clinics and could cause felony charges for doctors working on complicated pregnancies.

    Russo furthered an argument made by abortion rights proponents in previous testimony against the bill by saying the regulation “effectively bans and removes access to abortion,” particularly in Southwest Ohio, where two abortion clinics are located.

    Senate Bill 157 passed through the House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee on Tuesday, approved along party lines. It has already been approved in the Ohio Senate.

    The bill would expand the charge of abortion manslaughter, already on the books in Ohio, to include a physicians’ failure to “take measures to preserve the health of a child born alive after abortion,” according to the bill documents.

    Under the legislation, a physician who conducts an abortion but finds the fetus is still alive after the abortion to provide life-preserving care, something that opponents of the bill have said is already a part of state law and medical procedure.

    There is also a provision in the bill that requires the Ohio Department of Health to develop a “child survival form” for a physician to complete if a child is born alive after an attempted abortion, and for ambulatory surgical facilities to submit monthly and annual reports to the ODH.

    The ODH already compiles an annual abortion report based on medical reports signed by physicians of abortions conducted in the state. The report also includes complications, including “failed abortions” that happen in the state and a narrative on the complications.

    The bill’s sponsors referred to an abortion in which a child is born alive as a “botched abortion,” but state data shows the occurrence as a “failed abortion.” According to the most recent years of data on abortions in the state, “failed abortions” are rare, and did not happen in any pregnancies that were viable.

    An amendment made while the bill was in the Ohio Senate prohibits physicians who are funded through a public institution’s medical school from being a part of abortion clinics written transfer agreement variances, which allow a patient to be transferred to a hospital where the physician practices in the case of emergencies.

    Physicians who teach at public medical schools are also not allowed to serve as a consulting physician for abortion-related surgical facility, or the variance can be rescinded, according to the bill.

    Democrats attempted to insert amendments into the bill, including one from state Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, that would remove the transfer agreements variance regulation. Russo furthered an argument made by abortion rights proponents in previous testimony against the bill by saying the regulation “effectively bans and removes access to abortion,” particularly in Southwest Ohio, where two abortion clinics are located.

    “These are medically unnecessary agreements, but on top of that, because of the broad language, this does ban and remove abortion access for one part of the state in Southwest Ohio,” Russo said.

    State Rep. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, introduced an amendment that would take away the word “health” from the bill, leaving the bill to involve a baby’s “life,” which Liston said gives doctors more freedom to do what they feel is best in complicated births and pregnancy plans. Her amendment also sought to remove a requirement that a physician be charged with a third-degree felony for failing to file forms.

    “I think that these changes would minimize the downstream impacts and harm that we might see from this legislation in some small ways,” Liston said.

    Both amendments were quickly voted down along party lines without further discussion.

    The bill now heads for full House consideration, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday.

    Abortion is legal in the state of Ohio up to 22 weeks gestation.