Provision to Ohio budget could tighten abortion restrictions

It only took a day to blow my Wendy Davis high. Attacks on women’s access to abortion are happening in Ohio. In the process of passing a state budget, Ohio Republicans added a provision at the last minute that would require the following:

“…a doctor to use external medical means – likely an abdominal ultrasound – to find the heartbeat. The doctor would then have to notify the woman about the presence of the heartbeat and the fetus’ likelihood of surviving to full term.”

Rules like this one really get my tits in a twirl because they re-emphasize the fact that we do not trust women to be able to make choices about their bodies and lives. Instead, we think it’s our job to inform women what they are “getting into” by choosing to terminate a pregnancy.

The provision would also prioritize “other clinics” over abortion providers in the disbursement of  taxpayer dollars. What “other clinics” you wonder? Crisis pregnancy centers no doubt, whose sole purpose is to stop women from getting abortions.

And finally the provision would make it so:

“public hospitals would be unable to make required patient-transfer agreements with abortion clinics.

To stay open, clinics would have to find a private hospital willing to make the agreement, a concern for centers in areas without a private hospital or with private hospitals that have religious affiliations.”

We’ve seen TRAP laws like this pop up in other states. The logic is simple, if we can’t stop women from choosing to get abortions, let’s block their access to those services.

*gags*