New abortion laws bring increased activism on both sides

WASHINGTON New and stringent rules limiting abortion in Ohio and a handful of other states -- plus the renewed prospect that Roe v. Wade could be overturned -- have revived an urgency and activism about an issue that has simmered at a low boil for years.

It has spurred Isabella Guinigundo, at age 17, to plan a rally in her township near Cincinnati to oppose House Bill 182, which would bar insurers from covering abortions and limit coverage of certain types of birth control. The bill is being debated in the aftermath of passage of a state law banning abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, typically around six weeks into pregnancy.

To Guinigundo, the measures would keep her from "basic autonomy over my body."

"I don't know what going be happening in my future," she said. "In the end, it's my life. I should be the one to decide what happens with my body and my future."

By contrast, Allie Frazier, president of Students for Life at Columbus State Community College, said that new laws -- particularly one in New York allowing abortions after 24 weeks if the health of the mother is at risk or the fetus is not viable -- reinvigorated abortion opponents like herself.

Frazier, who started a baby-supply bank stocked with diapers and other items for new mothers, said she believes the more people learn about abortion and fetal development, the more likely they are to "identify as pro-life."

"The New York law changed the dialogue and changed the game," said Frazier, 25, of Columbus. "It wasn't going to stop with first-term abortions and that opened up people on the pro-life side, people who had been on the sidelines."

Guinigundo and Frazier reflect both a growing divide and growing energy on an issue that has divided America for years. And with five states this year enacting a ban on abortion at six weeks of gestation, the issue has emerged just in time for the 2020 elections.

In Dayton, more than 200 abortion rights activists came to a recent rally protesting state regulations threatening to close the area's only abortion clinic.

Advocates gathered outside Premier Health Partners to call on the hospital to sign a transfer agreement with Women's Med Center of Kettering. The Ohio Department of Health refuses to license the clinic as an ambulatory surgical facility without such an agreement with a nearby, privately funded hospital as required by state law.

"That's incredible for a Tuesday lunch-hour rally," said Kelley Freeman, NARAL's central and southern Ohio field organizer. "I'd have been happy with 30."

Freeman said the potential loss of the clinic and broader threat to abortion rights has prompted many to get involved.

"I can't keep up with all the people signing up to volunteer," she said.

At Planned Parenthood Ohio, 536 people volunteered between April 1 and June 1, said Stephanie Kollmann Baker, state organizing director of Planned Parenthood Advance of Ohio -- a sign of the growing enthusiasm to join the abortion battle.

"We are seeing lots of new energy around protecting abortion access," she said, calling Ohio "the poster child for restrictive, extreme, dangerous abortion bans."

Marin Deevers, a Miami University student spending her summer interning and helping organize events for NARAL, said seeing her mother and her like-aged friends worried about losing abortion rights has intensified her own concerns.

"It's very personal to me because I'm a person who can get pregnant," Deevers said. "It's nerve-racking to see my mom so concerned."

Abortion opponents say they also are seeing a spike in activism.

"Ohio Right to Life has been thrilled to seen an influx of interest and support for our pro-life mission in the last several months," said Jamieson Gordon, spokeswoman for the group.

"This extends not only just to our organization, since we've also seen increased interest in the activities and membership of our chapters. Earlier this week, Greater Columbus Right to Life hosted their annual banquet dinner, and they had the highest-ever attendance, with extra tables and chairs having to be brought out. The momentum is unlike anything we've ever seen."

Beth Vanderkooi, executive director of the Columbus chapter, said enactment of stricter abortion laws followed a long, steady effort to win over lawmakers and educate the public.

"Decades of activism have resulted in laws and jurists who are more open to passing and considering laws that protect the dignity and equality of all human life," she said.

Vanderkooi believes there are several reasons for the surge in activism in recent months. One is that people who have not been especially vocal "are reacting to extreme policies proposed that eliminate common sense laws like requiring equal care to babies born alive after attempted abortion, requiring surgical abortion clinics to be regulated like other surgical facilities, eliminating fetal homicide laws, and getting rid of late term abortion restrictions."

Second, young people better understand fetal development and "are convicted that the unborn child is fully human according to their faiths and science," she said.

Five states -- Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky and Mississippi -- saw six-week bans signed into law this year, while Alabama enacted a near-total abortion ban and Missouri enacted a ban at eight weeks of gestation, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Many are modeled on legislation crafted by the conservative Faith2Action, an Ohio-based conservative Christian group that has been championing heartbeat bills for about a decade, according to Mary Ziegler, a professor at the Florida State University College of Law.

"Ohio's bill is pretty standard," she said, noting the similarities between the five six-week ban bills "are not really an accident."

Alabama's, which bans abortion at fertilization, and Georgia, which recognize fetal personhood in addition to the six-week bans, she said, are more stringent.

In Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio the legislation does not provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest, though some of the bills provide exceptions for serious health risks to the mother or if the fetus has a condition that would prevent it from surviving after birth.

In all, 15 states have introduced, moved or enacted six week abortion bans this year. Combined, said Kollmann Baker, the bans are clearly designed to set up a legal showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court -- with two new conservative justices picked by President Donald Trump -- aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 high court ruling making abortion legal nationwide.

"Certainly, the aim for a lot of them is to bring this to the Supreme Court," she said. "This is no coincidence. ... This is a very long game our opposition is playing and for a long time planning."

This is one area where the two sides agree; many abortion rights foes -- including those in Ohio -- readily acknowledge their ultimate goal is using the new state restrictions to obtain a ruling from justices reversing Roe v. Wade.

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