Both Are Unconstitutional
Governor John Kasich has just signed a bill into law that bans abortion at 20 weeks, a point when only one percent of women who choose to get an abortion have one. The Ohio Republican also vetoed a bill that would have banned the practice at 6 weeks, a point when many who would have conceived don’t even know that they are pregnant.
Both bills are designed to limit women’s right to choose, and, according to the ACLU, both are unconstitutional.
Some pro-choice advocates felt the 6 week bill, so-called “fetal heartbeat” legislation, was less dangerous than the 20-week bill, because it is clearly unconstitutional and would be invalidated by the courts. The 20-week bill, a so-called “pain capable” bill, some say, has a great chance of standing up to federal courts, despite its reliance on flawed medical theory.
Anti-abortion activists have focused on 20-week abortion bills hoping to minimize the number of abortions that occur each year. They profess a human fetus in the womb can feel pain at 20 weeks, thus the call for banning the procedure at that point.Â
But as Vox’s Emily Crockett reports, “there’s no good medical evidence“ for the theory that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks. Medical science has generally settled on the 24-week mark, not 20. “The abortion opponents who tout it usually cite a single researcher whose conclusions aren’t supported by a larger body of evidence.”
Crockett also notes that “Ohio’s 20-week ban doesn’t make exceptions for rape or incest, either, which means a woman who is traumatized by rape would be forced to carry her rapist’s baby to term if she took too long to realize she’s pregnant and process what happened to her.”
Â
To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.
Image: Screenshot via Commonwealth Club/YouTubeÂ