Ohio Abortion Bill Would Require Doctors To ‘Re-implant Ectopic Pregnancy’ In Uterus Or Face Murder Charges
November 29, 2019
Ohio Abortion Bill Would Require Doctors To ‘Re-implant Ectopic Pregnancy’ In Uterus Or Face Murder Charges
The procedure is not currently medically possible.
The procedure is not currently medically possible.
Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require doctors, on discovering an ectopic pregnancy, to “re-introduce” the fetus into the patient’s uterus or face “abortion murder” charges, The Guardian reports. The procedure does not exist, as doctors have repeatedly tried to explain to the Ohio legislature.
Ohio already has some of the nation’s strictest abortion laws, having already passed a so-called “heartbeat ban,” which bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is at about six weeks into a pregnancy. Since most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant until after the sixth week, this bill, and many other like it across the country, effectively bans all abortions.
However, the Ohio bill, Ohio HB413, introduced by representatives Candice Keller and Ron Hood, and co-sponsored by 19 members of Ohio’s 99-member House is considered by abortion-rights advocates to be even more extreme. Most controversial is a provision requiring an impossible medical procedure.
The bill requires that if doctors discover an ectopic pregnancy — that is, where the fetus implants in the fallopian tubes rather than the uterus — the doctor must “re-implant” it in the uterus, or be charged with “abortion murder.”
That’s not medically possible, says Dr Chris Zahn, vice-president of practice activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“It is not possible to move an ectopic pregnancy from a fallopian tube, or anywhere else it might have implanted, to the uterus. Re-implantation is not physiologically possible,” he said.
Zahn also noted that ectopic pregnancies can be catastrophic if not treated properly, which is to say, removed, usually via abortifacient medication or, in some cases, laparoscopically, per The Mayo Clinic.
“Women with ectopic pregnancies are at risk for catastrophic hemorrhage and death in the setting of an ectopic pregnancy, and treating the ectopic pregnancy can certainly save a mom’s life,” he said.
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This marks the second time a bill requiring ectopic pregnancies to be “re-implanted” in the uterus has been introduced before Ohio’s legislature.
Elsewhere in the proposed bill are provisions that would see doctors, or women or girls as young as 13, charged with murder if they perform or have an abortion. It also creates a new crime, “aggravated abortion murder,” punishable by death.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, states across the country are enacting harsh anti-abortion laws, with a view towards having those laws be test cases before the Supreme Court. Abortion opponents are hoping that, with a now-conservative Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.