Late last year, the Ohio legislature passed one of the most extreme anti-abortion bills in the nation. It would have banned all abortions in Ohio from the point a heartbeat could be detected. The bill’s passage was a victory for veteran religious right activist Janet Porter, who had spent the last five years trying to get the bill passed. At one point, she tried to get fetuses to “testify” in support of this bat-guano crazy bill.
In the end, sanity prevailed–at least for now. Governor John Kasich vetoed the heartbeat bill just three days before it would have become law without his signature, rightly saying that it was blatantly unconstitutional and would accomplish nothing except sticking Ohioans with the bill for defending it in court. But Porter isn’t backing down. Far from it, actually. She’s not only continuing her crusade to destroy a woman’s right to choose–she’s taking it national.
Porter dropped by Gordon Klingenschmitt’s show to announce that when she comes to Donald Trump’s inauguration, she plans to meet with members of the House of Representatives to drum up support for a federal heartbeat bill. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Porter told Klingenschmitt that she was frustrated with the “incremental” approach of most forced-birthers. She was frustrated enough that she actually tried to run in the Republican primary for a state senate seat; she lost badly.
Noting that we are coming close to the 44th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Porter argued that at this point, the pro-life movement shouldn’t be debating whether to regulate or fund it, but “we should be done, we should be ending abortion.”
If lawmakers just want an incremental approach, then Porter is ready to give them an incremental bill that would potentially have the effect of ending nearly all abortion in this country. She’d actually begun the groundwork for a federal heartbeat bill during the campaign. Back in October, she appeared on a conference call with Christofascist “prophet” Cindy Jacobs, and announced that Congressman Steve King would introduce a federal heartbeat bill during the next session of Congress. Listen to a clip here.
Porter argued that this bill would have the effect of ending “90 to 95 percent” of abortions in this country. She also indicated that Mike Pence–whom Trump named as his running mate specifically to appeal to fundies–was “very agreeable” to this proposal.
Returning to Porter’s Friday interview, she argued that as technology improves, her proposed bill would outlaw abortion altogether. How’s that? Well, she argued that a fetus’ heart is beating as early as 18 days into the pregnancy. While she admits that there currently isn’t any technology that would detect a heartbeat at that stage, she believes that once that technology is there, this bill would ultimately be the death knell for abortion in this country.
There are a number of problems with this bill. For one thing, not all fetuses’ heartbeats can be detected at the same time. As Mother Jones noted when another incarnation of this monstrosity was introduced in 2013, it depends on, among other things, a fetus’ position in the uterus. Moreover, the only way that it is even possible to find out whether a fetus’ heart is beating as early as Porter claims is by way of a vaginal ultrasound. According to a number of Florida women who spoke up on Daily Kos when Florida initially tried to make all women who wanted an abortion get a vaginal ultrasound, this procedure is horribly invasive, and amounts to rape.
These are but two of the many reasons why Porter’s bill will likely never get out of the Senate. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and Shelley Moore Capito will likely break ranks to oppose this bill. It’s unclear whether this is a bridge too far for the three anti-abortion Democrats in the Senate–Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Bob Casey. But even if all three of them support this bill, at most it only has 52 votes–eight short of breaking an all-but-certain filibuster. And of course, this bill is a lawsuit waiting to happen if Pence persuades Donald Trump to sign it.
Then again, Porter has never been known for nuance. Her push for this bill was so aggressive that many believe the Ohio legislature passed her heartbeat bill in spite of her. It’s not likely that such tactics will peel off the eight Senators she would need even in a best-case scenario to get this monstrosity to Trump’s desk. But in the unlikely event it does, Porter should be on notice–we will fight it every step of the way and ensure that it never becomes law.
(featured image from Porter’s Facebook)
