Good News: Ohio Is Strengthening Protections for Abortion Survivors

December 10, 2021

On Wednesday, the Ohio House passed Senate Bill 157, a bill requiring that health and life-preserving care be rendered to infants who are born alive after an abortion and that incidents of infants being born alive following an abortion must be reported to the state’s department of health. The bill passed with a 61-35 vote along party lines.

SB 157 will now be sent to the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine. If he signs it, Ohio will become the 10th state in the nation to require the reporting of infants born alive after an abortion attempt (click here to see how your state ranks on FRC’s Born Alive Protections map).

Ohio Representative Gary Click recently tweeted about SB 157, saying, “This is one of the most important bills I have had the pleasure to support!”

Reporting requirements like the ones contained in SB 157 are an often-overlooked component of born-alive protection bills in the United States, but they carry great importance. Without these requirements, the number of abortion survivors in the United States remains unknown. This makes it easier for abortionists to operate in the shadows, without accountability for infants born alive for whom they fail to provide care. Much of the American public is left believing the lie that abortion survivors do not exist and that babies are never born alive following abortion attempts.

Although we lack the full picture of the data due to the lack of reporting requirements, we know that abortion survivors exist. Reports from the CDC; known cases of abortionists Kermit Gosnell and Douglas Karpen snipping the necks and spines of babies born alive; and the stories of abortion survivors like Melissa Ohden, Gianna Jessen, Claire Culwell, and Josiah Presley prove that these events do indeed occur.

Legislation like Ohio SB 157 is critical for attaining a more accurate estimation of the number of abortion survivors in the United States and to hold abortionists accountable for how they treat these infants.

If you live in Ohio, please click here to send a letter thanking your state officials for passing this legislation and urging Governor DeWine to sign it once it reaches his desk.