April 13, 2019: Lawmakers in Ohio and Texas Work to Overturn Roe v. Wade

 

4/13/19: Here in Ohio, it is now illegal to have an abortion once a fetus registers a heartbeat, around six weeks. The new law will essentially make abortion illegal and end Roe v. Wade. 

There are no exceptions for incest or rape.

 “Consider the repercussions” of having sex. 

In Texas, GOP lawmakers have toyed with the idea of making it possible to charge those who have abortions with homicide. That could lead to the death penalty. The sponsor of the measure is Rep. Tony Tinderholt. As he explained, the bill might make people “consider the repercussions” of having sex. This would include, as in the Ohio law, those who “consider the repercussions” when they are being raped and young girls assaulted by older relatives. 

Tinderholt, who has been married five times, should probably consider the repercussions of marrying. 

The Texas bill was defeated.

Governor Mike DeWine signs the Ohio "heartbeat bill."

POSTSCRIPT: As one newspaper explains, the bill, which remains on hold, pending U.S. Supreme Court approval, would require doctors to perform the kinds of miracles Jesus would perform, if, for example, he had ever been a doctor. (Not counting the time he raised Lazarus from the dead, anyway.) The bill “requires doctors to ‘reimplant an ectopic pregnancy’ into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of ‘abortion murder.’” 

I thought that story might be false. So I did more checking. It does not seem the pending bill would require doctors to replant ectopic pregnancies, which occur in roughly 1 out of every 50 cases – but the bill does suggest they give it a try – probably because the lawmaker who wrote it is a numbskull. 

According to one obstetrician/gynecologist, “reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy is simply not plausible.”

 

So, I kept checking. Rep. John Becker, author of the bill, soon admitted that he hadn’t researched ectopic pregnancies before proposing such legislation. 

Rep. Becker suggested lamely that doctors could try the procedure if they wanted. Just because it wasn’t standard procedure, he told reporters, didn’t mean it would be impossible. 

Dr. Chris Zahn, vice president of practice activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists objected. He explained to Business Insider that the procedure was “physiologically impossible,” that attempting to perform it would be extremely dangerous, and that the technology to do so doesn’t exist.