Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signs Bill Requiring Aborted Babies to be Buried or Cremated
The Ohio pro-life movement has claimed another victory after Governor Mike DeWine signed into law Senate Bill 27, which requires any babies or “fetal material” killed by abortion to be either buried or cremated.
The newest act of pro-life regulation necessitates that any woman obtaining an abortion in the state must be informed prior to the procedure that she can choose what to do with the dead body afterward – either cremation or burial – with the clinic paying for the costs.
If the clinic does not follow through with this, individuals could find themselves saddled with a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
While some organizations like National Right To Life (NRTL) praise the new law, other pro-life groups are less thrilled by this, pointing out that that this is nothing more than pesky regulationism that doesn’t actually do anything to abolish abortion.
Ohio is as red of a state as they come, with massive majorities in the House and Senate. The Senate has 25 Republicans to 8 Democrats and the House of Representatives has 65 Republicans to 35 Democrats, giving them a super-majority of professing pro-life politicians who have no interest in actually making abortion illegal.
Thus, bills like SB 27 are the excuse politicians use to not abolish it decisively. They offer it to their base as proof of action that they can fundraise upon, all the while teaching the culture dehumanizing misinformation about the preborn and idolatrous information about the Supreme Court.
Because they’ll pass laws against it all day along.
They regulate how you can kill your baby, when you can kill your baby, what steps you must take before you kill baby, what hoops you must jump through after you kill your baby, but never that you cannot kill your baby.
During Governors Kasich’s term, he passed 21 laws against abortion, and it is still legal as ever.
Contrast this to Senate Bill 13 in Oklahoma, which is interestingly opposed by pro-life groups like National Right to Life. Senate Bill 13 is wholly unique from many of the incremental, nibble-around-the-edges pro-life bills passed by the Republicans over the last decade in that it was designed to have Oklahoma completely and decisively abolish abortion regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the practice.
Under the proposed legislation, Oklahoma would ignore that court ruling and defy the Supreme Court when they invariably interfered, making it a true abolition bill, and not a toothless inconvenience with the same punishment you’d get for shoplifting.
Until Ohio does something similar, we’ll get bills like this one ad nauseum, and the babies will continue to die at a rate of 21,000 a year in the state.
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