Loss of Privacy

The Ohio State House of Representatives approved three bills that will trample women’s rights and be a defacto anti-abortion law if passed in the state senate.

The most controversial piece of legislation, known as the “heartbeat” bill, would prohibit the procedure after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Another ban targets late-term abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and the third bill would restrict insurance coverage for abortions.

This is absolutely amazing that the state of Ohio is even attempting something like this. The bill does not provide for cases of rape or incest and, considering most women do not even know they’re pregnant until after the bill’s six week “heartbeat” terminology, it would, essentially ban abortion in the state if it is passed by the senate and passed into law.

The two other bills passed Tuesday — a ban on late-term abortions and a measure to prevent abortion coverage under the federal health care law — are part of a national movement to eventually overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision, Gonidakis said.

All three bills are aimed directly at overturning Roe v. Wade and controlling what a woman can and cannot do with her own body. The “heartbeat” bill appears to be in direct contention with Planned Parenthood v. Casey and would likely be challenged in a higher court.

There are several problems with these bills that continue to be overlooked. If a women uses fertility drugs to get pregnant, often it results in several embryos. The doctor then reduces that to one or two fetuses. With the passage of this bill into law, the woman would be forced to keep them all, something a woman’s body is not designed to do. It would be a huge financial burden to the family and many would be forced to forego treatment, leaving childless women forever without children.

There are also a number of cases where late-term abortions must be performed. The fetus could be dead or have such developmental problems that it would not survive very long. There is also the issue of being forced to keep a child that is so developmentally disabled that it would be a massive financial burden to the family, possibly bankrupting them. These are never easy decisions to make and no woman makes the decision without much emotional distress, but, with this bill becoming a law, the woman would be forced to make the even more difficult decision to keep the child.

Nowhere in this bill is there a provision for the state to pay for these children and their emotional and financial needs once they are born. The state is telling women they must have these children no matter what, but there will be no help in raising the child once it is born.

Designing a law around a heartbeat is not the way to go. A heartbeat merely indicated that blood is pumping throughout the body. It is not an indicator of intelligence, coherence, or a person. It is meaningless in this bill. The development of higher brain functions would be a far better indicator of a person than a heartbeat.

The Oklahoma law that would force the public posting of women who obtained abortions that was set to go into effect November 1, 2009 has been successfully challenged in court. For now, the law has been blocked until a February 19 hearing.

“We are very pleased with today’s ruling. This law is a profound intrusion on women’s privacy and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” attorney Jennifer Mondino of the Center for Reproductive Rights said in a written statement. The New York-based center had filed a suit on behalf of former state Rep. Wanda Jo Stapleton and another Oklahoma resident.

“Women in Oklahoma should not have to jump through hoops to access legal medical care and the government has no business violating the state constitution to impose those obstacles,” Mondino said.

The law, passed in May, requires doctors to fill out a 10-page questionnaire for every abortion performed, including asking the woman about her age, marital status, race and years of education. In all, there are 37 questions the women are to answer.

This law is misguided because the lawmakers never took into account the fact that the women obtaining abortions could be identified or misidentified by the information that would be made public. If the law stands, it would go into effect March 1, 2011 at which time all women in Oklahoma would simply drive over the border to neighboring states to obtain abortions.

Regardless of your views on abortion, it is a medical procedure and should remain confidential. Placing abortion information and statistics online only serves to ostracize women from their communities.

Yes, you read that right.  It’s a law.  It begins November 1, 2009.  If you have an abortion in Oklahoma, all the personal details of your abortion, excluding your name will be listed.

Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions

With these details, once could easily deduce who the woman was, particularly if it is a smaller county.

Fortunately, The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law.  In their lawsuit, they argue that the law violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it covers more than one subject.  This tactic was successful in the past when Oklahoma’s abortion ultrasound law was struck down.

One would imagine that this would be a HIPAA violation, thus, automatically, making it illegal.  This law is nothing but scare tactics to put fear into women and force them to carry a fetus to term.