Thursday, December 09, 1999
House OKs late-term abortion ban
Backers: State bill avoids legal objections Abortion: House OKsnew late-term restriction
BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — In a move that would give Ohio some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the nation, state representatives approved legislation Wednesday intended to ban a late-term abortion procedure.
The measure — sent to the Senate on a bipartisan, 74-15 vote — faces a certain court challenge from abortion-rights activists who contend the proposal violates a woman's constitutional right to a legal abortion.
Similar laws in Illinois and Wisconsin have been blocked by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens while the high court decides whether to wade into the emotional debate about abortion rights again.
Federal courts struck down a similar Ohio law two years ago.
Sponsoring Rep. Jerome Luebbers, D-Delhi Township, and other backers urged legislative leaders to move the latest version anyway. They argued that the measure was written in a way that could pass constitutional muster.
“For many of us, this is a very difficult and emotional issue,” said Rep. Ann Womer Benjamin, an Aurora Republican who chairs the House Criminal Justice Committee and helped write the bill. ""But this prohibits an abortion procedure that many feel is gruesome.”
The bill would enable prosecutors to charge physicians with a new offense, “partial-birth feticide,” punishable by up to eight years in prison and a $15,000 fine. The bill does not hold a pregnant woman responsible, and exceptions would be created if the life or health of the mother was at risk.
Abortion opponents said they are seeking to ban a procedure known as dilation and extraction, or D&X, in which a fetus is partially removed from a woman whose pregnancy is in the third trimester. An incision is made in the skull of the fetus and the contents are drained to ease passage through the woman's cervix.
The procedure is rarely performed, accounting for fewer than 1 percent of abortions in Ohio last year.
Still, legislation to ban D&X has become a politically volatile issue in Congress and in state legislatures across the country.
A 1995 law sponsored by Mr. Luebbers was struck down as “unconstitutionally vague” in November 1997 by the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The measure imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion, the court said.
The 6th Circuit said Ohio can ban such late-term abortions, but the previous measure was fatally flawed because it lacked an exception for a woman's “severe psychological or emotional injury” (cases of rape or incest) and banned D&X even when “required for the life and health of the mother.” The court also said the previous measure encompassed the most common and unchallenged second-trimester procedure, dilation and evacuation.
Alphonse A. Gerhardstein, the Cincinnati lawyer who won the previous case on behalf of Dr. Martin Haskell, a Dayton physician who pioneered the D&X procedure, said the latest measure will be challenged as well.
“It continues to be too vague,” Mr. Gerhardstein said. “In a small number of cases, the D&X procedure is the best procedure because is involves the least amount of trauma for the woman, the least amount of blood loss and can be done more quickly than other procedures.”
Rep. Peter Lawson Jones, D-Shaker Heights, said courts have struck down similar laws in 17 of the 21 states that have enacted them. A federal judge in Louisville blocked Kentucky's law last year, calling it “unconstitutional and invalid.”
“The fact is an abortion is an ugly procedure,” said Mr. Jones, who along with Rep. Sam Britton, D-Cincinnati, was one of 15 House members voting against the bill. “But the fact is, whether one likes it or not, it's still a legal procedure.”
Mr. Luebbers, who is prohibited from running for re-election next year because of term limits, has sponsored most of the anti-abortion bills that circulated through the General Assembly during the past decade.
Other laws require teen-agers to obtain the consent of a parent or judge before obtaining an abortion and require women to meet face-to-face with a physician at least 24 hours before the procedure. Physicians are required during the meeting to provide women with information about the procedure, outline potential risks and estimate the age of the embryo or fetus.
The number of abortions performed in Ohio has remained relatively steady during Mr. Luebbers' tenure, ranging from a high of 41,705 in 1991 to a low of 32,165 in 1990, according to the state health department.
Other than banning the procedure altogether, a legal impossibility under the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision, Mr. Luebbers said he has done everything he can to restrict abortions.
“I would hope,” he said, “that what I've done at least made women think longer and harder about their decision and gave them a better understanding about what abortion is all about.”
House OKs late-term abortion ban
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