Unless you have a uterus!
Unless you have a uterus! fotoguy22 / istock

This week, Ohio's state legislature made a conservative wet dream come true: They voted to ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Just so we're absolutely clear on this, banning abortion at six weeks is a disingenuous, scientifically absurd way to essentially ban abortion completely. It conveniently ignores the fact that many women don't know they're pregnant that early and punishes them for that biological quirk. Oh yeah, and there's no exception for cases of rape or incest, because prescriptive, anti-choice cruelty evidently knows no bounds.

There's plenty of trash model legislation bandied about by the hate groups* that want to cut off access to abortion—there are the ones that exaggerate the risks of abortion and require doctors to lie to their patients, the ones rooted in racist stereotypes, the ones that criminalize miscarriage, etc.—but what's so damaging about these so-called "heartbeat" bills is that they hide their real intent—effectively outlawing abortion—behind a cutesy affectation of concern for the fetal heartbeat, which conveniently happens to be detectable for (SURPRISE!) most of a pregnancy. Feigned concern distracts from the bill's abject cruelty, which is how most anti-choice legislation works.

Welcome to Trump's America. This is likely what it's going to look like when it comes to reproductive rights. We're going to see more extremists (again, that's what they are*) making Roe v. Wade all but meaningless through deliberately misleading bills like this one. And that's not even taking into account the shitshow of the Supreme Court.

Ohio Governor John Kasich hasn't said whether or not he'll sign off on this law. But despite comparisons to a teddy bear and being less awful than the racist baked potato-elect, his record on abortion is bad enough to suggest that he will.

Of course, when abortion is illegal, abortions still happen. So if you're advocating for an abortion ban like this one, you're advocating for an abortion-hostile environment that leads women to self-inducing, which is horrific and dangerous. I hate everything about this. If you do too, here's where you can donate to Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette.

*I'm calling them hate groups because they clearly hate women and some of them commit acts of domestic terrorism, and IDK for some reason I'm just really into calling things what they are lately.