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Emotion fills Statehouse hearing on abortion ban
BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD, Senior Staff Reporter
Politics and religion framed the debate at a Statehouse hearing in Columbus this week on a proposed bill banning abortions.
A contingent of Clevelanders joined over 250 passionate supporters and opponents of abortion, who filled a third-floor hearing room and flowed over into the Statehouse atrium.
Testimony for and against the bill included statements from women with gut-wrenching stories about their own abortions, said Roey Margulies, co-president of the National Council of Jewish Women, Cleveland section. She submitted a request to testify at the hearing but was not called upon.
She found some of the anti-abortion testimony offensive, particularly that of the Rev. Russell Johnson, who equated abortion with Nazi atrocities. Johnson, a conservative evangelical pastor from the Columbus area, is the founder of the Ohio Restoration Project and a strong supporter of Republican Ken Blackwell in his race for governor against Democrat Ted Strickland.
During the hearing, Rabbi Barnett Brickner of Columbus said he was offended by Johnson’s linking the Holocaust to abortion, calling it “theologically shallow and morally reprehensible.”
Under House Bill 228, doctors who perform an abortion would face charges of a second-degree felony and 15 years in prison. It would also be illegal for anyone to transport a woman across state lines to obtain an abortion. The bill would only allow an abortion “without intent to do so” if the procedure occurred as part of treatment to prevent a woman’s death, the Columbus Post-Dispatch reported.
Some interpretations of the bill’s language say it even criminalizes counseling a woman to go out-of-state for the procedure.
Brickner, grandson of the late rabbi of Cleveland’s Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, testified that the bill would hinder his ability to counsel women faced with the dilemma of having an unwanted baby or breaking the law.
HB 228 “threatens the very principle of freedom of religious expression on which this country is built,” testified Brickner, a member of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Choice. Speaking after the hearing to the CJN, Brickner said that it’s important that lawmakers hear from other religious perspectives.
“Because the religious right’s voice has entered into the public arena, we need to also make sure the religious voice for choice is also able to stand up against that kind of bullying.”
Other testimony for the bill came from Janet Folger, a former head of Ohio Right to Life and now president of a Florida organization promoting a conservative social agenda.
People used to avoid her in the Statehouse, said Folger. But, now, “It turns out there are more of us than there are of them — not to mention the fact that our folks have been having children while the other side has been aborting them.”
HB 228 is not expected to pass or even have another hearing. But Margulies fears the Republican-controlled legislature might pass the bill during a lame-duck session if Strickland defeats Blackwell in November’s gubernatorial race.
The abortion ban’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Brinkman (R-Cincinnati), said during the hearing that he hoped the legislation would work its way to the US Supreme Court, so it could challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
“The hearing was a show hearing,” said Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. “It is totally a political exercise.”
The bill, Link noted, is so poorly written that it’s not clear what effect it would have.
“The committee is “stacked with anti-choice people,” Margulies said. “I wanted to testify in support of a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion and family planning services so they could see they are not representative of all the people of Ohio.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
A contingent of Clevelanders joined over 250 passionate supporters and opponents of abortion, who filled a third-floor hearing room and flowed over into the Statehouse atrium.
Testimony for and against the bill included statements from women with gut-wrenching stories about their own abortions, said Roey Margulies, co-president of the National Council of Jewish Women, Cleveland section. She submitted a request to testify at the hearing but was not called upon.
She found some of the anti-abortion testimony offensive, particularly that of the Rev. Russell Johnson, who equated abortion with Nazi atrocities. Johnson, a conservative evangelical pastor from the Columbus area, is the founder of the Ohio Restoration Project and a strong supporter of Republican Ken Blackwell in his race for governor against Democrat Ted Strickland.
During the hearing, Rabbi Barnett Brickner of Columbus said he was offended by Johnson’s linking the Holocaust to abortion, calling it “theologically shallow and morally reprehensible.”
Under House Bill 228, doctors who perform an abortion would face charges of a second-degree felony and 15 years in prison. It would also be illegal for anyone to transport a woman across state lines to obtain an abortion. The bill would only allow an abortion “without intent to do so” if the procedure occurred as part of treatment to prevent a woman’s death, the Columbus Post-Dispatch reported.
Some interpretations of the bill’s language say it even criminalizes counseling a woman to go out-of-state for the procedure.
Brickner, grandson of the late rabbi of Cleveland’s Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, testified that the bill would hinder his ability to counsel women faced with the dilemma of having an unwanted baby or breaking the law.
HB 228 “threatens the very principle of freedom of religious expression on which this country is built,” testified Brickner, a member of the Ohio Religious Coalition for Choice. Speaking after the hearing to the CJN, Brickner said that it’s important that lawmakers hear from other religious perspectives.
“Because the religious right’s voice has entered into the public arena, we need to also make sure the religious voice for choice is also able to stand up against that kind of bullying.”
Other testimony for the bill came from Janet Folger, a former head of Ohio Right to Life and now president of a Florida organization promoting a conservative social agenda.
People used to avoid her in the Statehouse, said Folger. But, now, “It turns out there are more of us than there are of them — not to mention the fact that our folks have been having children while the other side has been aborting them.”
HB 228 is not expected to pass or even have another hearing. But Margulies fears the Republican-controlled legislature might pass the bill during a lame-duck session if Strickland defeats Blackwell in November’s gubernatorial race.
The abortion ban’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Brinkman (R-Cincinnati), said during the hearing that he hoped the legislation would work its way to the US Supreme Court, so it could challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.
“The hearing was a show hearing,” said Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. “It is totally a political exercise.”
The bill, Link noted, is so poorly written that it’s not clear what effect it would have.
“The committee is “stacked with anti-choice people,” Margulies said. “I wanted to testify in support of a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion and family planning services so they could see they are not representative of all the people of Ohio.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
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