(Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union, its Ohio branch and Planned Parenthood on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging an Ohio law that they say could ban abortion as early as six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy. The law, which was passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature in April, bans abortions if doctors can detect a heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Four other U.S. states have passed similar “heartbeat” abortion bans in 2019 seen as part of a push to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring abortion a constitutional right. “This is a ban on almost all abortions, and if the court does not block it, it will imperil the freedoms and health of Ohio women,” Freda Levenson, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, said of the law set to take effect July 10. On Tuesday, Alabama’s state Senate passed the country’s strictest abortion bill, outlawing nearly all abortions other than those to protect a mother’s health. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa.<doc-sep>Claim A proposed bill in Ohio would ban birth control pills and IUDs if it passes. Rating Unknown Reporting AdvertisementsIn May 2019, a number of posts about “heartbeat bills” in various American states circulated on social media. For example, a rumor about Georgia (archived here) subsequently appeared that proposed legislation would purportedly ban birth control pills and IUDs. One popular Facebook post about a provision of yet another bill, this time in Ohio, featured a screenshot of two May 8 2019 tweets: and this is what is on the table in ohio pic.twitter.com/3kIwG5vSeY — rachel syme (@rachsyme) May 8, 2019 As with a claim involving similar proposed legislation in Georgia, the tweet included a screenshot snippet of an unlinked article. The excerpt was from an article published by Ohio’s Statehouse News Bureau on May 7 2019, “Ohio Legislature Considering An Abortion Bill That Is More Restrictive Than The ‘Heartbeat Bill,'” about Ohio House Bill 182 (full text here), which was sponsored by state representative John Becker. In its original context, the screenshot (italicized below) was part of commentary from Becker and a NARAL representative opposing the bill: One fifth of the representatives in the House have signed on to a bill sponsored by Republican John Becker that would prohibit most insurance companies from offering coverage for abortion services. […] The bill would ban nontherapeutic abortions that include “drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.” And Becker says the bill also speaks to coverage of ectopic or tubal pregnancies where the fertilized egg attaches outside of the womb. “Part of that treatment would be removing that embryo from the fallopian tube and reinserting it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abortion under this bill,” Becker explains. “That doesn’t exist in the realm of treatment for ectopic pregnancy. You can’t just re-implant. It’s not a medical thing,” says Jaime Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. She says, under this bill, women would have to wait until their very lives were in danger to get an abortion in the case of an ectopic pregnancy. “This bill will have grave impacts on Ohio’s infant and maternal mortality rate,” Miracle says. And she says that’s not all. She says it will ban insurance from covering popular methods of birth control. “Birth control pills, IUD’s and other methods of birth control like that – the bill states that any birth control that could act to stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is considered an abortion under this bill,” Miracle says. One applied usage of contraceptive pills and IUDs is “emergency contraception,” as they can be used after sex to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. The language of the bill implies emergency contraception versus standard usage (both of which fall under contraception, not abortion), but Becker seems to be unclear on those nuances. The article goes on to quote Becker’s admission that he is not familiar how contraceptives work: Becker insists his bill does not target birth control. “When you get into the contraception and abortifacients, that’s clearly not my area of expertise but I suppose, if it were true that what we typically known as the pill would be classified as an abortifacient, then I would imagine the drug manufacturers would reformulate it so it’s no longer an abortifacient and is strictly a contraceptive,” Becker says. One of the two controversies involved Becker’s claim that the bill would allow removal of an ectopic pregnancy from elsewhere in the body and re-implanting it in a woman’s uterus — a procedure that does not exist and is medically impossible to perform: Unfortunately, an ectopic pregnancy cannot be “reimplanted” into the uterus. We just don’t have the technology. So I would suggest removing this from your bill, since it’s pure science fiction. — Dr. Daniel Grossman (@DrDGrossman) May 8, 2019 Unlike the provision involving ectopic pregnancies, the excerpt in the tweet above was about a muddier issue: the bill’s language about birth control pills and intrauterine devices. House Bill 182 itself appeared to target insurance coverage of abortion specifically (not contraceptives per se), and its introduction states: To amend sections 9.04, 1739.05, and 5101.56 and to enact sections 1751.95 and 3923.591 of the Revised Code to prohibit insurers from offering coverage for abortion services. Language of the bill targeted provisions of existing legislation, redefining clauses and provisions affecting insurance coverage of abortions. Its first sections involved contraceptive pills and IUDs, underlined: Sec. 9.04. (A) As used in this section: (1) “Nontherapeutic abortion” means an abortion that is performed or induced when the life of the mother would not be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or when the pregnancy of the mother was not the result of rape or incest reported to a law enforcement agency. (a) “Nontherapeutic abortion” includes drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum. As noted in numerous places above, Becker’s bill was highly problematic due to portions of it that are physically impossible, such as the proposed “re-implantation” of an ectopic pregnancy. The quoted portion were the words of NARAL representative Jaime Miracle, who said that “the bill states that any birth control that could act to stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is considered an abortion under this bill.” In the quoted and underlined portion of the bill above, it does target “drugs or devices” — contraceptive pills and IUDs — “used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.” However, the article from which the tweet captured a screenshot says that would “prohibit most insurance companies from offering coverage for abortion services,” not necessarily ban them outright. Overall, important context was absent from both the Facebook post and tweet about Ohio’s HB 182. The language about birth control pills and IUDs did appear, but the lead-in to both the source article and the bill on which it reported noted that its provisions (on which its sponsor was admittedly unclear) purportedly targeted insurance coverage of abortion. Should it pass, it could affect standard usage of both forms of contraception, but the bill itself did not appear to target birth control itself. Nevertheless, Becker’s admitted unfamiliarity with the treatments he sought to legislate did not inspire public confidence.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging Ohio's six-week ban on abortion, opening up the latest front in a multistate legal fight over laws that ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country in mid-April. The law, called “heartbeat legislation,” bans nearly all abortions after the fetus’s heartbeat can be seen or heard, usually after about six weeks of pregnancy — before most women are aware they are pregnant. The law also has no exemptions for rape or incest. Ohio was the sixth state to adopt a six-week ban, joining Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Mississippi, but these laws have either been blocked in court or haven’t taken effect yet. The Ohio law is set to take effect July 10; the ACLU is seeking an immediate court order delaying the start date while the lawsuit goes forward. The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers on Ohio, estimates that the state’s law would prohibit 90% of abortions performed in the state. The group is arguing that the law violates women’s right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment. Health care providers who violate the Ohio law would face up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine, and they could face even stiffer fines from the state medical board and lose their license. Ohio’s legislature passed similar measures twice before, but they were vetoed both times by the state’s former Republican governor John Kasich. This session, the state’s Republican legislators passed the bill again, confident their new governor, DeWine, would act in their favor. This kind of legislation isn’t unique to Ohio. Model heartbeat bills were originally circulated by fringe anti-abortion groups in 2013, but the legislative push has picked up speed over the past year. Many women do not know they are pregnant before six weeks — pregnancies are measured from the date of a woman’s last period, not the date of conception — making these laws a nearly complete ban on abortion in many cases. Ohio’s law includes an exception only if the mother’s life is threatened or she faces serious bodily harm from carrying the pregnancy to term. Courts in Iowa, Kentucky, and North Dakota have blocked similar laws so far. Most anti-abortion politicians and activists are aware that these bills have no chance of becoming law in their state or surviving lower court review, but they’re pushing them in an effort to get the issue back before the Supreme Court. The ultimate goal is to convince the justices to overturn or greatly weaken Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide under the Fourteenth Amendment. In the Ohio lawsuit, the ACLU quoted DeWine saying that he was signing the law in an effort to advocate for “reversal of existing legal precedents.” Many abortion rights advocates, however, are confident that if the current Supreme Court takes up one of these cases, they would respect precedent and maintain the core of Roe v. Wade, keeping abortion legal nationwide.