Born-Alive Infant Protection Act

OHIO HOUSE PASSES BORN-ALIVE INFANT PROTECTION ACT

December 9, 2021

SB 157 Set For The Governor’s desk 

Innocent life was protected yesterday in the Buckeye State with Ohio’s House 59-33 vote on Senate Bill 157, the Born Alive Protection Act. It is tragic a Bill must exist to ensure Ohio babies born alive, breathing and with beating hearts, receive care after an abortion attempt. These children must now be given life-saving treatment.

Sponsored by Senators Terry Johnson (R-McDermott) and Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City), the Bill makes it a crime to withhold life-saving treatments on living babies. SB 157 requires a report be filed with the Ohio Department of Health about a baby who survives an abortion attempt. Cincinnati Right to Life thanks Senators Johnson and Huffman, both physicians. These brave men used their gifts in medicine to pronounce life, rather than diminish the value of the human person.

Another key aspect of SB 157 is language that separates Ohio tax dollars from abortion. There is a section of the Bill that prohibits physicians employed at state-funded universities from working as “back-up” doctors at abortion facilities. Surgical centers outside of hospitals in Ohio must have transfer agreements with local hospitals in the case of emergencies. The last two remaining abortion facilities in Southwest Ohio, in Dayton and Cincinnati, do not have transfer agreements with hospitals. These killing centers, due to a variance granted by the state, employ physicians that are also employed by state universities. When SB 157 is signed into law, without different back-up physicians, both abortion facilities would be set to close.

Abortion rates in Ohio increased almost 3% from 2019 to 2020. While the world was struggling with a pandemic, Ohio abortion facilities killed the unborn at a very high rate, especially in Dayton and Cincinnati. 2020 was the first year in Ohio’s history where more people died than were born. The 20,000+ Ohio abortions in 2020 contributed to this sobering and sad statistic. Ohio is losing people and the killing of the unborn contributes to this sad fact.

“Cincinnati Right to Life has advocated for years on behalf of women and their unborn children. Planned Parenthood’s continued opposition for life-saving treatment for children who survive botched abortions, reveals how little they care for mothers and their babies. For far too long, physicians employed by the state through teaching at state-funded universities, also work as back-up providers at Cincinnati and Dayton’s abortion facilities. Ohioans do not need or deserve for their tax dollars to be connected to abortion. SB 157 makes all of Ohio safer and keeps Ohio tax money out of the abortion industry.” -Laura Strietmann, Executive Director Cincinnati Right to Life.

As prolifers across the nation pray for Roe v. Wade to be dismantled through the ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case heard by the Supreme Court on December 1, Ohioans must continue to work protecting all unborn lives in our State. 

The Right to Life Action Coalition of Ohio foundational principle is tosafeguard the inalienable right to life – with the recognition of personhood,from conception until natural death, with no exceptions.

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Categories: Right to Life

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