COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill into law Thursday banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected.
Senate Bill 23, formerly called the “Heartbeat Bill,” is now known as the Human Rights and Heartbeat Protection Act.
Prior to the bill, abortions in Ohio were legal up to the 20th week of pregnancy.
The new law bans abortions about six weeks into a pregnancy, or about the gestational age at which a fetal heartbeat is detectable.
Pro-choice advocates say the bill is restrictive and takes away a woman’s ability to make a choice with her physician.
“Their reproductive decisions will be severely limited, and those decisions won’t be based on their own family values or their morals or what their physician feels is best for them,” Ashley Underwood of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio said on Tuesday. “It would be limited to what the government feels is best for them.”
Courts blocked heartbeat laws in two other states and a third is awaiting governor’s action.
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