Ohio Anti-Abortion ‘Heartbeat Bill’ Is About Ending Legal Abortion Not Saving Lives

image of Linda Theis co-author of Ohio's 'Heartbeat' Bill
Linda Theis
co-author of Ohio’s ‘Heartbeat’ Bill

The recent Ohio House Bill 125, aka the “Heartbeat” Bill, would prohibit an abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected. This usually happens as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. One common argument anti-abortionists use for needing such laws is to save the lives of unborn children. In a recent newspaper interview, one of the authors of the bill stated the real reason anti-abortionists want the ‘heartbeat’ bill passed. It’s all about ending legal abortion not saving lives.

Linda Theis, of Findlay, Ohio, has been involved in the anti-abortion movement since the 1970’s. In a profile and interview in the Findlay Courier she gave her reasons for joining the effort to take away a woman’s right to choose:

Theis said the abortion issue wasn’t really on her radar until she attended a meeting of a Heartbeat pregnancy group in the 1970s, where she was given information about abortion and Roe v. Wade.

Theis remembered thinking, “Oh my gosh, we are killing kids. How can this be?”

During the 1974-75 school year, she spoke about the abortion issue to some high school students in Hancock County.

“A couple of my friends who were teachers called and said, ‘We’ve got to talk to these kids about this. They just think they’re getting unpregnant. They don’t even know what’s going on,'” she recalled.

Theis said it was not uncommon for students to take “field trips” to abortion clinics.

“At that time, there were numbers of schools in northwest Ohio who were taking kids to abortion clinics during school hours. There was no parental notice, no parental consent, there was nothing then,” she said.

She’s at the heart of ‘heartbeat bill’

And then when speaking about drafting the ‘heartbeat’ bill she said:

“We just kept thinking we’d been doing things to legislate abortion a little bit, to regulate abortion a little bit, but we’d never done anything that would legally put an end to any of the procedures,” she said.

Theis, [Janet] Porter and the others discussed several new strategies, but finally settled on the heartbeat.

“A heartbeat makes so much sense because everybody can relate to that,” Theis said. “When my husband’s heart stopped beating last year, he was dead. We don’t bury people with heartbeats. And nobody wants to take away a life that we know is already there. The heartbeat indicates that.”

Yes the ‘heartbeat’ bill was created to “put an end to any of the procedures”. The ‘heartbeat bill’ is about ending legal abortion not saving lives. Abortion won’t end it will just go back to the alleys and secret clinics where women in need will roll the dice and hopefully not be butchered or die during the procedure.

As the ACLU notes:

Pregnancies are among the most important and deeply personal life experiences a family encounters. Every pregnancy is different — and so is every family. When a woman discovers she is pregnant, she often must discuss with her loved ones intensely personal issues such as health concerns, finances, and other needed childcare resources. These discussions often allow families to make the best decisions about healthcare for their circumstances.

H. B. 125 would take the ability to make healthcare decisions away from families. If the bill passes into law, the ACLU has promised a court challenge.

Why Ohio’s “Heartbeat Bill” is Truly Heartless

The idea that women who choose to have abortions feel nothing but only that they are now “unpregnant” is outlandishly irrational thinking and to want to force those women to have their babies is extremely arrogant. Besides it’s opposite of the usual conservative mantra of smaller government. I guess that means smaller as long as it keeps you from having an abortion. These are the same people crying about the individual mandate included in Health Care Reform.


Side Note:

image of Janet Folger Porter
Janet Folger Porter

The other co-author of HB 125 is Janet Folger Porter, who is rock star in the Forced-Birth Terrorist community. After serving for several years as legislative director for Ohio Right to Life, Porter moved up to National Director for the Center for Reclaiming America, founded by Dr. D. James Kennedy. She previous had a radio show on VCY America, a conservative evangelical radio network. Her show was cancelled in 2010 because she was promoting dominionism and VCY thought that was too radical for their network.

Porter’s claim that her radio program was dropped because VCY didn’t like somebody that prayed at her prayer rally is absolutely false, as the station made clear in its announcement that she had ignored the their repeated warnings about her embrace of Dominion Theology.

Once Dropped For Dominionism, Porter Still Insists She “Never Even Heard Of That Term”

So the ‘heartbeat’ bill she is trying to push through is part of her idea to impose her theism onto Ohioians and then the nation.

Another good reason to stop this law.


*Update 01/17/2012*

In the Courier article Linda Theis claimed that public schools were taking field trips to abortion clinics:

Theis said it was not uncommon for students to take “field trips” to abortion clinics.

“At that time, there were numbers of schools in northwest Ohio who were taking kids to abortion clinics during school hours. There was no parental notice, no parental consent, there was nothing then,” she said.

I was too young in the mid 70’s to be aware of this going on so I asked my Mom if she knew of such a thing going on back then. She said that Roe v. Wade was decided in 1972 and that made it legal to get an abortion. There was still a cultural block to getting an abortion. It wasn’t publicized or discussed in public like it is in 2012. Planned Parenthood was in Findlay but there weren’t any clinics around performing on demand abortion except in Toledo.

She said that what might have happened is that some school Counselor might have recommended girls in trouble visit Planned Parenthood and they might have then helped girls locate a clinic.

Except for Toledo, Northwest Ohio has always been very conservative. There would be no way schools would be having field trips to abortion clinics without the community losing its mind. That would be something that couldn’t be done in secret for very long.

When I was in 6th grade, around 1980, our school district started sex education. The religious zealots lost their mind then and I don’t ever remember any major protests about abortion before that.

My guess is Theis is using the classic scare tactic that some nasty abortionists are luring your children to have abortions without your knowledge or consent and that is bad….

But I am still open to reading or seeing actual proof that such field trips took place or school personnel were taking girls to clinics without telling the parents in the 1970’s


Here is an image of the Findlay Courier article in case the link I used in my post stops working — Doug

image of Courier article on author of heartbeat bill
image of Courier article on author of heartbeat bill

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5 Comments

  1. PooleBowman
    January 15, 2012

    Is Linda Theis correct in her assertion that schools bused kids to facilitate
    abortions in 1974-75?

    • January 15, 2012

      That was the implication I got from her quote in the article. It is a common argument. However I was in grade school back then so I don't have personal experience with that or have heard about that happening and I wasn't able to verify it. That is another reason I feel she meant that some schools gave kids trips to clinics to have abortions.

      • PooleBowman
        January 16, 2012

        Thank you. I wrote a letter to the editor questioning her assertion.
        I don't believe it. I think she jumped the tracks.

        • January 16, 2012

          Great – let me know if it gets printed.

          I asked my mom what it was like back then. Roe v. Wade was in 1972 so even if the date is correct of 1975 or so my mom said there was still a society stigma about abortion so any so-called "field trips" to abortion clinic couldn't have happened without a massive backlash. My mom thinks Theis is using the usual scare tactics she said were used even after Roe v. Wade.

          • PooleBowman
            January 17, 2012

            Thanks for checking and for writing the above report.
            What is wrong with The Courier? Shouldn't they have balanced
            her statement with a fact check? Aren't the basic rules of good
            journalism still who, what, where, when and why? They gave
            credibility to a probable lie by not even applying common sense.
            While I'm at it, where is the concern about spoiling Findlay's image
            that they expressed regarding the Cooper lockout? The Courier
            has always driven me nuts. Finally, what has happened to
            Cliff Hite? He is way over his head supporting a group that has
            been disavowed by "mainstream" anti-abortion groups. I'm also
            appalled by his lack of common sense. My letter was printed
            in today's The Courier. Thanks. Bill

Comments are closed.