According to the Ohio Capital Journal, the state may be changing the way abortions are reported and directing other assistance toward establishments offering life-affirming alternatives.
Key Takeaways:
- The Ohio legislature passed a state operating budget last week that is now at the desk of Governor Mike DeWine.
- If he signs it, it will change how abortions are reported and will require abortionists to complete reports on chemical and surgical abortions.
The Details:
The Ohio legislature passed a state operating budget out of joint conference committee last week, sending the bill to Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature. He will also be able to make line-item vetoes.
That budget bill includes language that would change abortion reporting:
- The Ohio Department of Health’s annual abortion report would include the total number of Ohio residents undergoing abortion versus non-Ohio residents who have “undergone an abortion and received post-abortion care” in the state.
- If signed into law, abortionists will be required to fill out reports on both surgical and chemical abortions.
- Age categories would be altered under the budget bill, changing categories to younger than 16, 16 to 17, and 18 to 24.
- The total number of minors who undergo abortions would be included in the monthly and annual reports.
- Those reports would also include information on age, race, marital status, and number of previous pregnancies.
The bill contains other provisions that provide resources to establishments that provide alternatives to abortion, according to the Capital Journal:
- “… [A] Senate provision that gives $5 million over the biennium to the Ohio Department of Children and Youth for the purchase of “3D diagnostic ultrasound machines,” to be distributed through a grant program.”
- … [T]he entities who are eligible to receive the ultrasound machines are those who do not “promote abortion, perform abortion-related medical procedures or make referrals for abortions.”
- “The new budget even includes up to $750 per year in personal income tax deductions for those who donate to the centers….”
The Journal notes that the eligible “entities” could include “pregnancy resource centers,” noting that “[t]he state – and DeWine through executive orders – has funded the centers with grant programs in the Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which has clear exceptions for those who provide abortion services or information.”
Multiple other appropriations are included as well. Interestingly, though the Capital Journal claimed that the budget included “reductions” to the budget line for “infant vitality,” this is only in comparison to what the House originally proposed for the coming year; in reality, $18 million is proposed in the conference committee’s version, which is an increase of $1.2M from this fiscal year.
The Backstory:
In 2023, Ohio voters (57% to 43%) enshrined abortion as a “constitutional right” in the state, which even removed the state’s parental notification law and allows abortion up to undefined and subjective “fetal viability,” and after for the life or broad “health” of the mother.
The group behind the ballot measure was a coalition comprised of “organizations including the ACLU of Ohio, Abortion Fund of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, and the abortion facility Preterm-Cleveland.” Efforts to pass the measure were funded by the Open Society Policy Center (George Soros), Michael Bloomberg, Lynn Schusterman, and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
The Other Side:
Jaime Miracle, deputy director of the abortion advocacy group Abortion Forward, claimed that requiring abortionists to complete paperwork regarding abortion procedures is “unnecessary and burdensome.” She told the Journal:
No one wants to wait longer to see a doctor because they’re busy completing extra paperwork to satisfy some politician’s agenda. Ohio already has some of the most medically unnecessary and burdensome reporting requirements around abortion care. No other medical procedure is required to be reported in the way abortion is.
Physicians and their staff complete a considerable amount of paperwork, either in hard copy or electronically, for numerous governmental requirements. And Ohio wouldn’t be the only state to require paperwork regarding abortion procedures.
Lauren Blauvelt of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio (who was also co-chair of Ohioans for United Reproductive Rights during Ohio’s 2023 pro-abortion ballot initiative push) told the Journal that those abortion reports would require zip code information, which she claimed “is a threat to patient data and privacy.”
The Bottom Line:
Given the fact that abortion is now unrestricted until “viability” (which some consider to be 24 weeks gestation, though premature babies have survived at 21 weeks) in the state, it appears Ohio lawmakers are attempting to provide more help to groups offering life-affirming alternatives.
