Advocates Of Ohio 'Heartbeat Bill' To Begin Airing Obnoxious Ads

Mississippi’s jaw droppingly absurd Personhood Amendment is drumming up a lot of press, but theirs isn’t the only kooky pro-life law poised to pass this fall; Ohio’s got a bit of overreaching anti-choice legislation of its own: a fetal heartbeat bill. And supporters are about to to take to the TV airwaves to urge politicians to pass the damn thing, for the children and such. Ohioans, I hope you’re ready to get the shit annoyed out of you.

House Bill 125 is nicknamed the “Heartbeat Bill” because it would ban all abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which typically happens at around 6 weeks’ gestation, when the fetus is about the size of a lentil and has no arms, legs, or face. Not that it matters to pro-life advocates.

The group responsible for the ad is called Ohio ProLife Action, and it seems that the group exists solely for the purpose of promoting this piece of legislation. The spot features children boarding a school bus and a voiceover explaining that the Heartbeat Bill will save a big ol’ school bus full of children per day. A whole school bus full of children barely larger than the end of a pen and lacking arms, legs, and faces! Imagine that!

To put it Midwesternly, the ad certainly isn’t the smartest. First of all, Ohio, like many states, has been having some budget problems recently. With an entire new school bus full of children per day “saved” by the heartbeat bill, who is going to take care of them? It’s not like they suddenly found all this oil in Youngstown that they can sell to pay for schools for all these kids, and even if they did, with teachers’ unions being dismantled left and right, who’s going to want to teach them? Other fetuses? They’ve got heartbeats; why can’t they get their asses in gear and get their teaching degrees?

Undaunted by either science or logic, Ohio ProLife Action plans to air the ads urging people to tell their state Senators to take action on the bill on Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity, which sounds like it might be preaching to the choir until you realize that they’re actually probably preaching to the choir’s wallets.

Once the state Senate takes action on the bill, it has a decent likelihood of passing. It passed the House of Representatives in June, and the State Senate is heavily Republican — 21 members of the chamber are of the red persuasion to only 11 Democrats. Ohio’s governor is also redder than the Ohio State bleachers— he’s former Fox News host and occasional substitute Bill O’Reilly John Kasich.