Backers of the Ohio House passed bill that would ban abortions at the point a fetus’s heartbeat could be heard are trying a new strategy to get the Ohio Senate to pass the plan. A new political action group calling itself Ohio ProLife Action will make this bill its top priority. Linda Theis is the president of the group.
"The bill is now in the hands of Senate President Tom Niehaus. The bill is now 17 votes away from becoming the most pro life law in the state and indeed in the nation," says Theis.
Ohio Right to Life, which neither supports nor opposes the heartbeat bill, is not a member of this new political action group. Director Mike Gonadakis says his group welcomes another group into the fight against abortion. He says his organization has legal questions about the heartbeat bill. But backers of the heartbeat bill insist their plan is legal.
Kelly Copeland with the National Abortion Rights Action League of Ohio says this new group is more of the same in her mind.She says this fight over abortion is not what Ohioans want.
"They are clamoring for jobs. They are saying to politicians they elected last November, 'you said you would fix the economy. Let’s get busy'. They are not wanting them to spend all of their time on this war on women that they launched back in January," says Copeland.
The new political action committee will begin airing television ads in the Dayton area to try to convince Ohio Senate leaders to allow the bill to be put up for a vote.