{"id":206149,"date":"2019-07-09T13:09:06","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T18:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=206149"},"modified":"2019-07-10T10:35:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T15:35:08","slug":"ohio-judge-temporarily-blocks-heartbeat-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/ohio-judge-temporarily-blocks-heartbeat-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio judge temporarily blocks ‘heartbeat law,’ days before it was to go into effect"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A federal judge has temporarily blocked<\/a> Ohio\u2019s heartbeat law from going into effect while a legal battle goes forward.<\/p>\n

District Judge Michael Barrett issued the injunction last week from Cincinnati, saying that the Human Rights and Heartbeat Protection Act (SB 23)<\/a> \u201cplaces an \u2018undue burden\u2019 on a woman\u2019s right to choose a pre-viability abortion.\u201d He also stated<\/a> that the law \u201cwill have the effect of preventing nearly all abortions in Ohio\u201d and therefore, \u201cOne could characterize the obstacle Ohio women will face as not merely \u2018substantial,\u2019 but, rather, \u2018insurmountable.’\u201d The law was to take effect July 11th.<\/p>\n

Mike Gonidakis, President of Ohio Right to Life, spoke out after the injunction was ordered, calling it disappointing but not surprising. In a statement<\/a> released the same day, he expressed hope that the legal challenges ahead would eventually lead to the overturning of Roe. \u201cThe Heartbeat Bill has the potential to be the vehicle that overturns Roe v. Wade. We know that this preliminary injunction is just a step in the process to finally seeing Roe reconsidered.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill was considered to be an eventual challenge to federal abortion laws, as backers of the bill hoped it would go all the way up to the Supreme Court, reported the The Washington Times<\/a>\u00a0in April when the bill was passed. At that time, Ohio Right to Life called the law the \u201cnext incremental step in our strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade,\u201d a sentiment that was reiterated by the Governor last week.\u00a0\u201cGovernor DeWine has long believed that this issue would be decided by the United States Supreme Court,\u201d said spokesman Dan Tierney in an email to Reuters<\/a>. Judge Barrett even said as much in his ruling: “To the extent that the State of Ohio ‘is making a deliberate effort to overturn Roe [v.Wade] and established constitutional precedent,’ […]\u00a0those arguments must be made to a higher court.”<\/p>\n

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The law would prevent abortions on babies where a heartbeat has been detected, usually around 6 weeks. This could sometimes be before a woman is aware that she is pregnant. Although abortion activists have disputed the term \u201cheartbeat\u201d about these bills<\/a>, research has discovered the heart, a crucial organ for fetal development, may beat even earlier<\/a> than initially thought. And of course, until very recently<\/a>, when\u00a0“heartbeat”<\/a>\u00a0became an “unscientific” term when speaking about preborn children, the term was widely used even by the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists<\/a>.<\/p>\n