Posts Tagged: ohio
Telemedicine Bans Hurt Rural People
Last year, I found a woman bleeding through her dress at a gas station 20 minutes from where I live. She asked me for a ride to Winn-Dixie, where she proceeded to tell me about all the terrible things her family had done to her and how it had left her with STIs she couldn’t cure because she can’t afford to get anywhere in town, let alone pay for repeated visits to a doctor. And that’s not to mention the children her marital rape left her with — children she could neither afford to care for, and whom she deliberately punished for being the result of her husband’s abusive attitude (note that this is not the norm). She lamented the fact that she could not get an abortion, but did… Read more »
New Year, New Opponents: the Ohio 20 Week Ban
The year seemed to have ended positively in Ohio for reproductive justice legislation with the rejection of fetal “heartbeat” House Bill 248 in the House. This year does not seem to be shaping up to be any calmer for RJ advocates. The state of Ohio and the nation faces many more threats of legislation that attempt to restrict abortion. Earlier this week, we saw a proposal by abortion opponents to introduce a 20-week ban on care. This would mean that 20-weeks after gestation, a person would not be able to terminate their pregnancy. In 2011, Ohio’s governor John Kasich was able to pass a ban on abortions in the state after 24-weeks and the new push for 20-week bans continues a steady encroachment on the right to receive an abortion… Read more »
Defeating Ohio’s “Heartbeat” Bill
HB 248, also known as the “Heartbeat” bill, which threatened to ban abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat (as early as six weeks) was thankfully defeated in the House of Representatives last week! The bill had the potential to make Ohio the most restrictive state in the nation for pregnancy termination. HB 248 was introduced in 2013, and is the second Heartbeat bill to pass through Ohio. The majority approval the Heartbeat bill in Ohio’s state Committee on Health and Aging shows the dangerous threats towards comprehensive reproductive care in Ohio at this time. This bill got defeated for many reasons, most importantly because it was unconstitutional. By regulating that the detection of a fetal heartbeat would end the right to an abortion, HB 248 violated the constitutional right of… Read more »
WTF Ohio? A Guide to Current Legislation and Activism
Right now, there are no clinics in Ohio with active licenses to terminate pregnancies. Every single clinic is currently out of compliance with Ohio legislation. RH Reality Check just released a run-down on Ohio’s newly renewed anti-abortion budget yesterday. Over the past few months anti-choice legislators and activists have been engaging in attempts to shut down clinics one by one, without much interference from local lawmakers. Recent Ohio legislation has constructed a terrifying model for shutting down clinics — and it could get used by states across the country. Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and other states have seen their fair share of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider, also known as TRAP, laws that are designed specifically to shut down provider service facilities. Fortunately for women’s health advocates, many judges have ruled… Read more »
Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality in Ohio
Marriage equality seems to be expanding every month, with states like Michigan and Arkansas having court cases and lawsuits against the state. The issue of marriage equality has been dividing several state-wide LGBT organizations in Ohio. While some groups believe that Ohio is ready for marriage equality to be put on the ballots, others argue that not enough of Ohio’s voters would vote in favor in favor of the ballot measure. While 17 other states have made it a reality, the question must be asked: Is Ohio ready for marriage equality? A ban on marriage equality was first voted on in Ohio in 2004, passing with 62% of the voters in favor of instituting the constitutional ban. As recent as April, a federal judge has ruled the ban on recognizing… Read more »
“The War On Voting” comes to Ohio
On Wednesday, February 19th, Ohio legislatures passed Senate Bill 238 and Senate Bill 205. SB 238 “would reduce the number of absentee-voting days by six — from the current 35 days before an election down to 29 days before an election. (Absentee ballots for men and women in the armed forces and for overseas voters would continue to be available 45 days before an election.)” SB 205 “would forbid any public official except Ohio’s secretary of state from mailing out unsolicited applications for absentee ballots.” Governor Kasich has signed both. Instead of 35 days, Ohioans now have 29 days to cast a ballot before an election. 29 days is not bad. Some states don’t allow that much. True. But that doesn’t make SB 238 any less terrible. The right to… Read more »
Why Ohio Needs to Keep Golden Week
Ah, yes, as an Ohioan, I’ll never forget the first Election season and Golden Week where I could legally vote. What a magical time, literally full of giant buses and go-karts on my campus shipping us off to the polls and college students clutching their voter registration forms on clipboards. We were all fresh-faced from a candidate visit and ready to engage our fellow students about voting. You see, voting in Ohio is really funny. That’s if you find constant 24/7 political advertisements hysterical, or you somehow find it amusing that candidates from both sides of the fence practically live here from all of the visits (with both the Obama and Romney family visiting each 30 times in four months). Ohio is also famous for Golden Week. So what exactly… Read more »
#WhatWomenNeed, Valentine’s Day and Beyond
I loved All Above All’s Valentine’s Day twitter campaign. The simple #WhatWomenNeed was a great way to raise awareness about abortion coverage. It got me thinking about the big picture. What women need, for Valentine’s Day and beyond. Narrowing the list down to 5 was difficult. This is certainly not comprehensive. But I think it’s a good place to start. 1. Sexual assault needs to be taken seriously: Sexual assault is an epidemic. Ms. magazine reports that “1 in 5 women will experience a rape or an attempted rape at some point during college.” Activists, students, women and their allies have been campaigning for decades in the hopes of getting the public and our government to take sexual assault seriously. There have been many articles and books and blog posts written… Read more »
Keeping an Eye on the “Incremental” Abortion Restrictions in Ohio
I set out to write this piece about the impact that Governor Kasich’s budget bill has had in Ohio since it was signed into law six months ago. I thought the budget bill, or House Bill 59, was the worst blow to Ohio reproductive rights. What I didn’t know was that while House Bill 59 was a pretty tough blow, it was just one of many tough blows to the state’s fragmented reproductive rights protections. Turns out reproductive rights in Ohio have been steadily chipped away by the state’s government officials for over twenty years. Unless you have been part of the small group of people on the ground fighting back, you may not have known. And it’s all because of the approach the state government officials have taken. Instead… Read more »
“We Wont Go Back Rally” at the Ohio Statehouse
Today in Columbus Ohio at 11:30am, women and men from across the state will meet at the Statehouse to hold a rally. The “We Won’t Go Back Rally” is a speakout against “all the extreme attacks on women’s health” that have been happening in Ohio. For those of you who don’t know, the budget that was passed this summer was a major blow to reproductive rights. The anti-choice provisions which were sneaked into the budget include defunding Planned Parenthood, directing money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to Crisis Pregnancy Centers, (Crisis Pregnancy Centers are notoriously coercive ) and forcing doctors to lie to their patients about abortion. So far an abortion clinic in Toledo has already been forced to close.
