Ohio Abortion Ban Challenges Terms Of Roe v. Wade [View All]

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/21/ohio-late-term-abortion-b_n_906068.html

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a bill on Wednesday that bans abortions after 20 weeks if the fetus is determined to be viable, making Ohio the latest in a series of states to ban late-term abortions.

The Ohio bill contains no exceptions for rape or incest and only a very narrow exception for health of the mother, which means that an Ohio physician must be able to prove in court that he performed a late-term abortion to save the woman's life. If a doctor violates this rule, he could be arrested and lose his medical license.

"This is a big deal, in that it could have a real chilling effect on later abortions because there's a potential to be thrust into the court system for providing an abortion after viability," said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization. "It would be a huge burden for a provider to go through all of that and have to hire a lawyer to prove that you provided an abortion under the law."

The Ohio law is similar to the 20-week abortion bans that passed in Nebraska in 2010 and in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma in 2011. These bills prohibit all abortions after 20 weeks, while the Ohio bill bans abortions only after the fetus is viable -- but doctors are required to start testing for viability at 20 weeks.