Faith 2 Action

Janet Porter has pulled out all the stops in her effort to pass her radical anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill" in Ohio.  Over the last year, she has filled the Ohio House with heart-shaped red balloons, re-written the lyrics to an 80's pop tune, brought in prophets and apostles to push for passage, and even had multiple fetuses "testify" in favor of the legislation.

But still her bill remains stuck in the Ohio Senate, which is why she held another press conference yesterday to push for its passage; this one featuring children with teddy bears advocating on its behalf:

Christian Harrington didn't mince words during his moment at the Statehouse Tuesday.

The 8-year-old wants the Ohio Senate to take action on the Heartbeat Bill, legislation that would ban abortions within weeks of conception.

"I'm here to save babies with beating hearts," Christian, barely tall enough to peer over a podium, told a packed committee hearing room. "And I want to tell the senators to pass the Heartbeat Bill right now. And when I mean right now, I mean right now."

The youngster was one of more than 50 children who were in Columbus Tuesday as part of the latest attempt by backers of the Heartbeat Bill to convince lawmakers to pass the legislation.

They had a press conference with reporters, held a faux committee hearing showing lawmakers how to vote in favor of the bill and delivered Teddy bears, complete with real heartbeat sound chip, to all 33 Ohio senators.

"Do not believe the stuff the people tell you at the abortion clinic," said 11-year-old Sydney McCauley. "The just say it's a blob of tissue, and that is not the truth. That blob of tissue is actually forming into a baby."

Porter posted video of the event on her website yesterday where she explained that legislators had already heard from babies, national and local anti-abortion leaders, and the residents of Ohio ... so now it was time to hear from the children, like Noah who Porter held up to the microphone so he could explain that "I am 4 and I have a heartbeat":

After months of campaigning through prayer rallies and television, radio and even aerial advertisements, proponents of Ohio’s extreme anti-choice Heartbeat Bill finally inched the process forward this week as the Senate president Tom Niehaus and Health committee chairman Sen. Scott Oelslager held committee hearings on the legislation. But now, the bill’s future is in doubt after Niehaus abruptly postponed hearings on the bill, first proposed by Janet Porter and State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, over intense infighting among anti-choice activists and last-minute changes to the bill:

Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, pulled the plug today on House Bill 125, the so-called heartbeat bill that would have been the nation’s strictest anti-abortion law. He suspended hearings on the controversial legislation until 2012.

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Oelslager had planned to only take testimony on HB 125 and not make amendments to it. That indicated the bill would not get passed this year as Porter said she was promised by Niehaus.

Niehaus said he doesn’t remember making that promise only that there would be hearings before Christmas. He again blasted Porter and bill supporters for suggesting changes Tuesday after saying the Senate should pass HB 125 just as it was passed by the House in June. He discounted Porter’s contention that the changes were technical in nature.

“After five months of berating us and criticizing us, with no explanation they hand me a four-page document with 20 plus changes,” he said. “Where were they? It underscores how complicated and contentious this legislation is.”

The Dayton Daily News reports that the National Right to Life Committee’s James Bopp testified against the extreme legislation, which is also opposed by the Ohio Right to Life Society:

The bill has divided abortion opponents, and James Bopp Jr., general counsel to the National Right to Life Committee, testified against it Tuesday. He said in his prepared testimony that he believes the ban on abortions after a heartbeat would be unconstitutional under current court rulings and would not stand a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

He said that the “informed consent” requirement in the bill — that a woman be informed that a heartbeat was detected — would be useful legislation that would be constitutional.

Porter, however, rejected Bopp’s argument and said taking the ban out of the bill would “take the heart out of the Heartbeat” bill. Ohio Right to Life does not support the bill for reasons similar to those outlined by Bopp, but Porter and supporters say now is the time to mount a challenge.

Last week we reported that Janet Porter said she had the votes in the Ohio State Senate to pass her extreme anti-choice Heartbeat bill, which already passed in the House, and today the Senate President said he will send Porter’s legislation to Senate’s Health, Human Services and Aging Committee. Porter, who heads Faith 2 Action, helped spearhead a new group called Ohio ProLife Action to advocate for the bill after the Ohio Right to Life Society refused to support the clearly unconstitutional measure. Governor John Kasich, an anti-choice Republican, has yet to announce his view on the Heartbeat bill.

Aaron Marshall of The Plain Dealer reports:

Ohio Senate Republicans, under pressure from an anti-abortion group to act, will move a bill that bans abortions in Ohio once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, says Senate President Tom Niehaus.

The New Richmond Republican said this week that a four-month Senate impasse on the so-called "heartbeat" legislation has broken, and his caucus is prepared to move forward with committee hearings and eventual passage of the legislation. If the heartbeat bill becomes law and withstands any legal challenges, Ohio would have the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

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"I expect the bill will be moving to committee for deliberation," said Niehaus.

He said the intent would be to eventually move the bill to the floor for passage, although he couldn't say exactly what the timetable would be. The Senate is dominated by Republicans, who hold a 23-10 majority, and the GOP caucus is solidly anti-abortion rights.

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Rob Nichols, spokesman for Gov. John Kasich, said the Republican governor "has been consistently pro-life all of his public life" but doesn't generally take a position on bills that haven't reached his desk.

Mississippi Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who was elected as governor yesterday, also co-chaired “Yes on 26,” the campaign to pass a “Personhood” amendment in the state, and said on Election Day that the fight over Initiative 26 was “a battle of good and evil of Biblical proportions” and warned that “Satan wins” if the initiative fails. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, which heavily funded the “Yes on 26” effort, warned that the country would face God’s judgment if Initiative 26 lost and urged voters to “choose life lest the flickering flame of our liberty be extinguished forever.”

But the initiative did indeed fail, with a whopping 58% of Mississippi voters rejecting the extreme personhood law.

Along with Personhood USA and the American Family Association, Religious Right groups including the Family Research Council, Faith 2 Action and Liberty Counsel all backed Initiative 26.

Hours after the initiative was trounced at the polls, anti-choice activists are already blaming Planned Parenthood, the media, and Satan for the defeat.

Personhood USA’s Keith Ashley pledged to bring the personhood initiative back to the Mississippi ballot:

Personhood USA firmly believes that our campaign fell victim to the outright lies of our opposition, and because of their lies, children will continue to be murdered in Mississippi.

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We recognize that the right time to end abortion in Mississippi is now, and that is why the citizens of Mississippi will attempt a personhood ballot measure again—and again, if necessary—until every person’s life is protected.

Brad Prewitt, the executive director of “Yes on 26,” likened the personhood fight to the struggle against slavery, and Gualberto Garcia Jones of Personhood USA blamed the media and the “culture of death” for the defeat, in interviews with the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow:

"It's easy to look at things in a linear fashion, but we know that God's provision is not easily discernible by us in terms of his will -- and we have to await his will," he tells OneNewsNow. "And in the meantime, we have to be committed to biblical truth."

Meanwhile, Prewitt stresses the pro-life movement is not on life support in Mississippi. "There has been and there will continue to be a pro-life movement in Mississippi," he assures. "William Wilberforce started the anti-slave movement in England [in the late 1700s] and it was a 20-something year process. So if you have to start somewhere, I think it was a productive dialogue to have."

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A spokesman for Personhood USA say advocacy groups for personhood learned a lot from the campaign. "I think definitely the lies that were put out there by Planned Parenthood definitely took their toll on the people of Mississippi, and a lot of them believed them," says Gualberto Garcia Jones.

He laments that that misinformation converted to no votes on Election Day, even among pro-life residents.

"One of the things that was very telling to me was that the media, even in a conservative state such as Mississippi, was incredibly negative," Jones notes. "We had to battle uphill the whole time. They just carried the water for the opposition at every level.

"It's an indicator of how deep the culture of death has taken root of our nation.

Susan Tyrrell of Lou Engle’s Bound4Life wrote that it was a victory for “the kingdom of Satan”:

When push came to shove Tuesday night, Mississippians voted that the unborn could not be defined as people according to the proposed personhood amendment.

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The kingdom of Satan is united, which is why, for this season, it’s successful. Eventually the church will be united. At the end of the age we will be a powerful, praying church that stands for the only definition of justice that exists: the Jesus one. But right now we’re not there. I don’t want to be cynical. I know many wonderful praying people of all denominations who stand for LIFE and the word of God. We are advancing, but tonight, once again, we have let the kingdom of darkness advance ahead of us.