Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
    • Terms and Conditions
      • Opt-out preferences
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Presentations
      • A Secular Case Against Abortion
      • Building Bridges
      • Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths
      • Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
    • Collections
      • Becoming Pro-Life
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Ask An Atheist
      • LGBTQ and Pro-Life
      • Fixed that meme for you
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
    • Print Materials
      • 100 Pro-Life Sign Ideas
      • Overview of SPL
      • 3 Reasons to tell people you’re pro-life
      • How to talk (not fight) about abortion
      • Bridges PRC Curriculum
      • Fetal Remains Disposition Protocol
      • FAQ handout
      • Presentations overview card
    • Store
  • Contact
  • Get Involved
    • Why support SPL?
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Volunteer Survey
    • More Surveys
      • Why do you support SPL?
      • Best and Worst Abortion Arguments
      • “Ask An Atheist” Interview
      • Non-Traditional Pro-Life Survey
      • LGBT Pro-Life Survey
      • Parents experiences with prenatal screening
      • Your experiences with adoption
      • Your experiences with processing abortion
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Ohio made abortion advocates tell the truth

December 14, 2016/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Kelsey Hazzard

Ohio’s heartbeat bill—which prohibited abortions on any unborn human individual with a detectable heartbeat—was vetoed by Governor Kasich. He exercised the veto not on pro-abortion grounds, but out of concern that the legislation would be tied up in court and never go into effect. You’re all having fun debating the wisdom of that decision on our facebook page, and I encourage you to continue. But let me take this opportunity to highlight a victory that should not go unnoticed.

You may have heard this referred to as the “6 week ban.” But interestingly, the phrase “six weeks” appears nowhere in the bill. Six weeks happens to be when a baby’s heartbeat is typically detected, but the legislation was based on heartbeat, not age. What that means is that when abortion advocates consistently referred to it as the “6 week ban,” they were admitting a fact about early prenatal development. Moreover, they made “before most women even know they’re pregnant” their rallying cry: an admission that most abortions occur when the unborn child is not a clump of cells.

A Google News search for “heartbeat doesn’t know she’s pregnant” brings up over 56,000 results, largely from sources that oppose the right to life. Among them:

  • Vox: “Ohio got a lot of attention last week for passing an extreme ‘heartbeat’ bill that would ban all abortion after a fetal pulse can be detected — or at around six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant.” 
  • CNN: “This law is nicknamed a ‘Heartbeat Law’ because it states that abortion is prohibited as soon as a heartbeat can be detected in utero. That’s typically at around 6 weeks, depending on the woman in question and/or available technology. … At that point, many women don’t even know they are pregnant.”
  • NPR: “Ohio’s Legislature has passed a bill that would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is typically around six weeks after conception — before many women even realize they’re pregnant.”
  • Samantha Bee: “What the hell, Ohio? At six weeks, most women won’t even know they’re pregnant.” 

Can you imagine if pro-life groups tried to buy advertising from those outlets with the message “Abortion stops a beating heart”? Most probably would have refused on ideological grounds, and even for those that didn’t, the expense would have been significant.

Instead, this legislation got notoriously pro-abortion media outlets to tell the truth about prenatal development, directly to their readers.

Nice job, Ohio legislature. As ever, the legal, cultural, and educational arenas build upon one another.

Related Posts

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png 0 0 Kelsey Hazzard https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Kelsey Hazzard2016-12-14 12:05:002021-11-08 12:21:30Ohio made abortion advocates tell the truth
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption & Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • Dialogue strategy
  • en español
  • Later Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, & court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • Speeches, Discussions, Presentations
  • SPL Emails
  • They Can Hear You
  • Top SPL Articles
  • Top SPL Graphics
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Year In Review
  • Your Stories

Archive

It’s crucial that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Read more details here. Please donate today.

DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
© Copyright 2025 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup

Related Posts

On Unchosen Responsibility More evidence that most late-term abortions are elective
Scroll to top
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

Subscribe for Livestream Updates and More

* indicates required

Interests

Want to receive our email newsletter?

We’d be happy to keep in touch. Subscribe for access to our newsletter and other updates.