Excerpt:
An unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected as soon as 18 days after conception, and supporters of a bill slated to be unveiled in the Ohio Legislature Wednesday say that women should be prohibited from ending pregnancies beyond that milestone.
State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann is planning to unveil the “Heartbeat Bill” and a legislative aide for the Republican tells Fox News that 42 of the 99 representatives in the Ohio state House have signed on to the bill, which would make an exception to the heartbeat rule only in emergency medical situations.
According to 2009 data from the Ohio Department of Health, 56.6 percent of abortions in that state occur in the first nine weeks of pregnancy. And since the fetal heartbeat appears on monitors by six weeks into gestation in most cases, supporters of the bill believe that it could prevent thousands of abortions.
“When the Heartbeat Bill passes, it will be the most protective law in the nation,” Janet Folger Porter, president of conservative advocacy group Faith2Action, said in a release. Porter helped craft the bill, and was also instrumental in passing the nation’s first ban in partial-birth abortion when she was legislative director of Ohio Right to Life.
[…]And though Porter and former Ohio Right to Life president Linda Theis vocally support the Heartbeat Bill, the pro-life organization’s current executive director says the legislation is destined for failure.
“Unfortunately, the Heartbeat Bill will not survive a court challenge, and therefore not save one life,” Ohio Right to Life executive director Michael Gonidakis told Fox News, arguing that state courts and the Supreme Court would slap down the heartbeat cut-off in the same way they would reject a full abortion ban. “Because the Supreme Court, unfortunately, has ruled on countless occasions that any restrictions on abortion pre-viability are unconstitutional,” he says.
And in Georgia, another Republican is proposing a bill to ban all abortions once the unborn baby can feel pain. Can you imagine causing pain to a helpless little baby? That would be horrible – but that is exactly what abortion does. So, I hope both of these pro-life bills pass.
I also must note that poets will play no part in these initiatives to restrict abortion. These pro-life legislative efforts will be fought by lawyers and judges who have advanced legal training – training that takes effort and money to achieve. And their case will be grounded in science, not in poetry. The pro-abortion side is grounded in poetry, feelings and sad stories about poor, poor women who are not responsible for their own choices. The pro-life side is grounded in reason and evidence. And the more reason and evidence the pro-life side can muster, the stronger their case will be in the only place where it really matters – the legislatures and the courts.
WINTERY KNIGHT 