New Law Requires Women to Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion.
Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion if Down's syndrome Is Reason
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CLEVELAND — Opening a new front in the abortion wars, abortion opponents are pushing Ohio to make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion if a woman is terminating her pregnancy to avoid having a infant with Down syndrome.
The legislature is expected to approve the measure out this fall because lawmakers endorsed past the National Right to Life Committee, which supports the neb, make up more than than two-thirds of both houses.
Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican who is running for president, opposes ballgame simply has non yet taken a position on this bill. Since his election in 2010, he has signed a variety of abortion restrictions, including a police force requiring women to accept an ultrasound and be offered a chance to see an epitome of the fetus before undergoing the procedure.
Mike Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life, said his group had made the pecker here a legislative priority because Downwardly syndrome is so recognizable, so hands diagnosed in pregnancy — and so probable to atomic number 82 to abortion.
"We all want to be born perfect, simply none of united states are, and everyone has a right to alive, perfect or not," he said. "You go to any supermarket or mall and encounter these families who just happen to have a child with Down syndrome, and they volition tell yous how fortunate they are to have those children. Pretty presently, we're going to find the gene for autism. Are we going to arrest for that, too?"
But abortion rights lawyers say such a law would violate the Supreme Court'southward Roe v. Wade decision, which guarantees a woman's right to seek an ballgame until the fetus is viable. They also say that by focusing on the diagnosis of a fetal condition, it edges toward recognizing the fetus as a person, setting up a disharmonize between the mother'southward interests and those of the fetus.
Betwixt 60 and 90 per centum of fetal Down syndrome diagnoses lead to abortion, according to an academic article reviewing research studies from 1995 to 2011 on the percentage of women who choose to terminate their pregnancies.
Over the last four decades, dozens of states have regulated access to abortion through waiting periods, clinic regulations or limits on how far along the pregnancy can be. Laws banning abortion based on motivation are far less mutual.
Prototype
In 2013, Northward Dakota made information technology illegal for a physician to perform an abortion because of fetal genetic anomalies, including Down's syndrome. Indiana, Missouri and South Dakota considered similar laws this year. Seven states — Arizona, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota — have laws banning abortions if the reason is gender selection. In 2012, the United States House of Representatives rejected such a measure out.
Arizona'southward law too forbids abortion when the doctor knows "that the abortion is existence sought based on the sex activity or race of the child, or the race of a parent of that child."
Advocates are not aware of enforcement of any such laws in u.s. that take them.
"They're trying to interlope on the right to abortion, step past step, and turn a woman's health intendance decision into an issue of bigotry confronting the fetus," said Sara Ainsworth, the director of legal advancement at the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. "I can't imagine how any of these laws would exist enforceable."
There take been no prosecutions under the 2013 N Dakota law, advocates on both sides say. Nor has the constabulary inverse anything at the state's only abortion provider, the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, said Tammi Kromenaker, its managing director.
"We have non had whatever women who presented maxim they demand an abortion because of a fetal diagnosis," she said. "I believe there are real women affected by this, but not at our clinic. If someone did come up in saying that, we would refer her to a clinic in Minneapolis."
Here, in a leafy residential neighborhood on Cleveland'south e side, where Naral Pro-Pick Ohio shares offices with Preterm, a nonprofit abortion dispensary, local abortion rights advocates say the bill drives a wedge between supporters of inability rights and backers of abortion rights.
"This is interference with a medical determination following a complicated diagnosis," said Kellie Copeland, the executive manager of Naral Pro-Choice Ohio. "For usa, it comes downwardly to who makes the decision and who's going to have to alive with it. Not knowing the family unit and the circumstances, the legislature can't possibly take into account all the factors involved."
National and local Down syndrome associations have not taken a position on the bill. Simply some parents of children with Downward syndrome are strong proponents.
At a May hearing on the neb, Heather Bellegia-Ernst, a mother of a child with Down syndrome, testified that "with nine out of 10 babies with Down syndrome being aborted, extinction is what nosotros are actually talking about."
Rachel Mullen, 43, a female parent of three who heads the recently formed Cuyahoga County chapter of Ohio Right to Life, said in an interview that her doctors had pressured her to accept an abortion after an early on screening test in ane of her pregnancies showed a possibility of Down syndrome.
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"They told me that I should get an abortion fast, so no one would know I was pregnant and I wouldn't take the stigma of abortion, that it would be doing the kid a favor," she said, adding that subsequent testing ruled out the Downwardly diagnosis. "As soon as babies are built-in, they're protected by the Americans With Disabilities Human action, but we need this bill so that they can be built-in, and not culled."
Some doctors in Cleveland — where the most abortions in Ohio are performed — fear the bill would discourage patients from having honest discussions well-nigh a tough decision.
"If abortion on demand is legal," said Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, "and you tin can have an abortion simply because you want to, what does it mean to say you tin can't abort for Down syndrome? It seems baroque."
Indeed, there is currently no requirement for a woman to disembalm her motivation for terminating a pregnancy.
Ohio is one of the most anti-ballgame states in the nation, the kickoff to introduce a bill that, had information technology passed, would have banned abortions later six weeks, when a heartbeat can be heard. In July a federal appeals court establish such a police in North Dakota unconstitutional.
Another neb, which would prohibit abortion later 20 weeks, is notwithstanding pending in Ohio. The legislature, which reconvenes in mid-September, has also imposed new regulations on abortion clinics.
Since Mr. Kasich took part, the number of clinics in the state that perform abortions has decreased to ix, from sixteen. Mr. Kasich appointed Mr. Gonidakis, the Ohio Right to Life president, to the state medical board.
At the Preterm clinic, nearly 66 of the 5,000 abortions that volition be performed this year will be for fetal abnormalities, including Down's syndrome and conditions, like anencephaly, that are fatal, said Chrisse France, the executive managing director.
"They're very lamentable, because these are generally intentional, much-wanted pregnancies, where they paint the nursery i day and discover out the side by side mean solar day that something'south wrong," she said. "Well-nigh people who accept abortions already accept children, and they say things like, 'I just tin't be the kind of parent I want to be to this child.' "
The main effect of restrictive laws, she said, is to "squeeze vulnerable women and brand them feel more ashamed, and that'southward what the Down syndrome constabulary would do, too."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/23/us/ohio-bill-would-ban-abortion-if-down-syndrome-is-reason.html
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