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Lisi Reynolds holds a bill in favor of "Heartbeat" bills at the March for Life, the world's largest anti-abortion protest in Washington, Jan. 19. (Carolyn Van Houten / The Washington Post)
Lawmakers from the state of North Dakota passed the first bill on "heartbeats" in 2013, a law banning abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, this can happen as early as six weeks, even before a woman knows herself pregnant.
The lower courts have ruled it unconstitutional, based on the landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wadeand the high court refused to hear the appeal.
Iowa passed a similar bill last year and a state judge declared unconstitutional too.
Despite this precedent, more than a dozen other state legislatures have introduced their own "heartbeat bills" this year. The governors of three states – Mississippi, Kentucky and, more recently, Ohio – have signed a six-week ban. Soon, the governor of Georgia should also pass a law on his state's bill.
All face or will face legal challenges from organizations defending the right to abortion.
They are not discouraged. That was the plan all along.
"We know that pro-abortion forces will sue, and that's part of the process," said Lori Viars, an anti-abortion activist in Ohio, where the ban on Six weeks that she promoted was promulgated Wednesday. "We want this bill to go to the Supreme Court. It has been written for this purpose. "
[Read the ‘testicular bill of rights,’ one lawmaker’s answer to antiabortion legislation]
Although lawmakers have been introducing six-week abortion bans for years, it took nearly a decade of unsuccessful attempts for the movement to create the kind of momentum that it has known early in 2019. Lawyers on both sides of the abortion debate are: seriously questioning the safety of roe – because traditional anti-abortion groups are adopting more radical positions and the restrictions imposed by abortion are reaching a critical mass, because Donald Trump is president and in two years he has appointed two judges Conservatives Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court.
"The change of the Supreme Court has opened these flood gates," said Elizabeth Nash, director of state affairs for the Guttmacher Institute. "What we are seeing now is that lawmakers want to enact an extreme ban on abortion because they want to overturn the law. Roe v. Wade. "
That's what Janet Porter, the architect of Canada's first heartbeat bill, has always wanted.
The Ohio resident and longtime advocate of the fight against abortion came up with the idea in 2010, at the funeral of her former boss at Ohio Right to Life, where she had been working for a long time. decade. The man died before abortion was banned all over the country, and Porter could not help thinking about all the work he had to do.
"If we can not protect all of them," she added, "we'll protect as much as we can," Porter said.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Thursday signed a six-week abortion ban bill. (Fred Squillante / Columbus Dispatch / AP)
Three months and many meetings later, she had joined a legislator from the state of Ohio to present her original idea. And eight years later, it was finally promulgated by Governor Mike DeWine.
"I do not think we have done everything we can to get this bill across the finish line," Porter said. "This is a bill that I hope will be welcomed by the US Supreme Court."
[[[["The only reason I'm alive is the fact that the abortionist had not come to work yet"]
The American Civil Liberties Union has already pledged to challenge the law in lower courts, as have themselves and other abortion rights groups for all other "beating" bills. heart "adopted in recent years. In order for the cases to reach the High Court, a judge of the court of appeal should uphold one of the prohibitions – in defiance of the federal legal precedent.
This process will likely take years and it is unclear whether the Supreme Court judges would take the case even if she arrived at their office.
"These bills are patently unconstitutional," said Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for the state's policy and strategy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the groups that challenged before the courts anti-abortion legislation. "With the change in the Supreme Court, abortion opponents are hoping that the Supreme Court will change decades of jurisprudence and decide an issue differently."
"Hostile legislators present all these bills and hope for a different response," Smith said, despite decades of court decisions reinforcing women's right to abortion.
But years of state legislation restricting access to abortion, without banning it altogether, have gradually reduced the number of types of health care that women can receive and where they can receive it.
Abortion rights activists protest "beating heart" bill in the Georgia State Capitol building in downtown Atlanta. (Alyssa Pointer / Journal Atlanta / Constitution / AP)
"What is happening with these abortion bans is totally devoid of legal thought, legal precedent, legal theory," said the representative of Georgia, Dar'shun Kendrick, a Democrat who represents a progressive district. His colleagues in the state legislature passed an inadequate bill last month and the law awaits the signing of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Hollywood celebrities have descended into the country in recent weeks, calling on contract filmmakers to withdraw, unless vetoed the law.
"There have always been bills," said Kendrick, who has been a naysaying opponent of the six-week ban in his state. "The difference is that now the Conservatives are empowered because of the president we have and the things he said."
According to the Guttmacher Institute, in the first quarter of 2019, 28 states passed legislation prohibiting or limiting abortion. This includes proposals for waiting times before a woman can undergo an abortion procedure; compulsory ultrasounds; limitation of abortion coverage in health care plans; regulations on the equipment and facilities of the clinic; the rules on admission privileges for suppliers; parental consent; limits on abortion drugs; and the ban on the most common abortion techniques.
There are also proposals to limit abortion to 12 and 20 weeks.
Some states have gone as far as to adopt and enact so-called "triggering" laws or laws totally prohibiting abortion, but only coming into force in the event that Roe v. Wade is overthrown by the Supreme Court. They are more symbolic than anything, said Nash, "except that for the moment, everyone is very nervous about them".
At the same time, a number of progressive states have enacted their own "trigger laws", but these protect abortion rights rather than restricting them.
"All state lawmakers are reviewing the Supreme Court," Nash said.
What comes next for Porter and her bill on heartbeat – now a law on heartbeats – is only a matter of time, she said: "Stay tuned. l & # 39; listen. "
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