Janet Porter Pushes Ohio State Senate to Vote on 'Heartbeat Bill' before Election

Faith2Action’s Janet Porter believes that her prized Heartbeat Bill, which would criminalize nearly all abortions, may soon receive a vote in the GOP-controlled Ohio State Senate. The bill already passed the House but has been held up in the State Senate, leading Porter to embark on a campaign to drive out Republicans who didn’t want to put the bill up for a vote and bring together Religious Right activists to pray for the bill’s passage.

According to a letter sent to supporters earlier this month [PDF], Porter said that her bill may receive a vote in the Senate before the general election in November. Of course, Porter has predicted the passage of her bill in Ohio and other states many times before, and she is organizing another prayer rally in the Statehouse Atrium on October, 28.

Dear Friend of Faith2Action,

Since you last heard from me, we've entered a critical new phase in the Heartbeat Bill – one that has involved intense behind-the-scenes negotiations with former opponents of the bill and much prayer and fasting! I am absolutely amazed: it appears that God is doing the miraculous again by turning former Heartbeat Bill opponents into allies! I believe we are finally reaching the point of breakthrough.

As I write this, the final changes to an agreed-upon "compromise bill" are being drafted—without losing the vital legal protection for babies. In some ways, this new version is even stronger than the original thanks to countless hours of painstaking work by some of the nation's leading pro-life attorneys.

This revised, mutually acceptable bill will be presented to leaders in the Senate this week and we are asking for a vote on the Heartbeat Bill on the floor of the Ohio State Senate, before the election!

The good news: This agreed-upon bill is a huge step toward a floor vote and the most important breakthrough since it passed the House more than a year ago. We are now just inches away from effectively ending abortion in Ohio!

The bad news: We've gone to the mat many times in the past for causes we believed in, but never before in our decade-long history have our resources been this depleted. Getting the Heartbeat Bill to this point has literally taken everything we have personally and as a ministry. We've spent our personal savings, gone without salaries and poured everything we had into getting our message out to the pro-life voters, prayer warriors and senators of Ohio.

Our campaign to publicly hold our senators accountable for their inaction included tens of thousands of postcards, weekly press releases, robo-calls, newspaper ads, rallies, emails, and flyers. And it worked! We give God all the glory for this. And I personally want to thank our loyal supporters like you who make our work possible.