Bill Would Make Ohio Second State to Ban Abortions Based on Down Syndrome

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 11, 2015   |   1:35PM   |   Columbus, OH

The percentage of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth and who eventually become victims of abortions is outlandishly high. Studies show somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-90 percent of unborn babies with Down syndrome are victimized by abortions.

North Dakota eventually became the first state in the United States to ban abortions on babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome. With the governor’s signature on the ban in 2013, Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple took that state in a decidedly pro-life direction.

Eventually a judge dismissed a legal challenge abortion activists brought against the legislation.

Now, the state of Ohio is considering a similar ban on abortions of babies with Down syndrome. Naturally, abortion backers have no problem with aborting babies simply because they have the disability.downsyndrome20b

Only one U.S. state, North Dakota, has a ban on abortions after the discovery of a fetal anomaly. Indiana lawmakers introduced a similar bill last month, although a bill much like it died in 2013.

Anti-abortion activists aren’t trying to prohibit women from receiving fetal diagnoses through amniocentesis, said Stephanie Ranade Krider, executive director of Ohio Right to Life. But they fear women are making decisions to terminate pregnancies after receiving only a preliminary screening, even before they have amnio.

“We’re never opposed to people having as much information as they can have about their baby,” Krider said. Many times, Krider said, “Those are just screening tests,” citing a December investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting.

“We think there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” she said.

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Abortion rights activists condemned the proposal as over-reaching.

At the time North Dakota adopted its bill, Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest praised it.

“A civil society does not discriminate against people – born and unborn – for their sex or for disability.  We should be celebrating diversity, not destroying it,” she said. “Women in particular have been targeted for death in the womb, and we’ve also seen dramatic abortion rates for children with disabilities which put them at risk for extinction. Gov. Jack Dalrymple, Rep. Bette Grande and the legislators in North Dakota have shown courageous humanity in passing this legislation.”

Yoest said that, while federal and state laws protect women and the disabled from discrimination, the unborn are not similarly protected.