COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday afternoon that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

The House passed the bill 56-40, mostly along party lines, as people on both sides of the abortion debate loudly protested outside the chamber.

Shortly after, the Ohio Senate voted 18-13, also largely on party lines, to agree to changes made in the House to Senate Bill 23.

During the campaign for governor, DeWine said he would sign a heartbeat bill.

The bill would ban abortion as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Recent Baldwin Wallace University polling showed 43 percent of Ohioans oppose the ban and 41 percent support it.

The governors of North Dakota, Arkansas, Kentucky, Iowa and Mississippi have signed fetal heartbeat bills into law. Many of them have been challenged, and all courts that have ruled thus far have determined they’re unconstitutional.

Only one case has hit the U.S. Supreme Court -- North Dakota’s law. The high court decided against hearing it.

However, abortion opponents hope the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually rule on the laws and ultimately strike down Roe v. Wade -- which makes abortion legal if the fetus isn’t viable.

Abortion opponents hope the high court replaces the viable standard with a heartbeat standard.

“This is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” said Rep Candice Keller, a Middletown Republican who is the executive director of an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center. “This is not a religious issue. This is an issue of humanity and morality.”

Rep. Beth Liston, a Dublin Democrat who outside the legislature is a physician and Ohio State University internal medicine professor, said the bill isn’t based on science.

At six weeks, fetuses are a cluster of cells smaller than a grain of rice, she said. At 12 weeks, they are two inches. Fetuses at six and 12 weeks are not the widely accepted standard of defining life in medicine, she said.

“Simply put, you need lungs and a brain in order to live," she said. “And there’s no science or technology that we have that can replace that need."

Jail time, fines

Doctors and others who perform an abortion after a heartbeat has been detected or when failing to do an abdominal or transvaginal ultrasound before an abortion are punished under SB 23, including:

Facing a fifth-degree felony, punishable by six to 12 months behind bars and a $2,500 fine.

Doctors would face further disciplinary action before the State Medical Board of Ohio - including revoking or suspending a license. A $20,000 Medical Board fine would go into a new state fund for foster-care and adoption services.

Women could sue abortion providers for wrongful death under the bill, and a doctor couldn’t use as legal justification that the measure is unconstitutional unless a court rules it so.

The bill doesn’t have any exceptions for rape and incest.

There is an exception to preserve the health of a woman after a heartbeat has been detected.

Abortion providers would have to document the woman’s medical issues and keep copies of them for seven years.

The woman would have to sign a form acknowledging she is allowing an abortion and “the unborn human individual that the pregnant woman is carrying has a fetal heartbeat and that the pregnant woman is aware of the statistical probability of bringing the unborn human individual that the pregnant woman is carrying to term,” according to legislative documents analyzing the bill.

Failed amendments

A handful of amendments introduced by Democrats failed.

Rep. Janine Boyd, a Cleveland Heights Democrat, introduced an amendment that would have allowed exemptions for rape and incest, but it failed.

Also failing was an amendment introduced by Rep. Tavia Galonski, an Akron Democrat, to remove the statute of limitations for rape offenses and to eliminate spousal exemptions to rape.

On my doctor's lab coat is a button that reads, "Not A Doctor". Politicians should not be making health care decisions for half Ohio's population. #StopTheBans https://t.co/jcus6IrdiA — Kent #BestWhipSmith Smith (@KentKSmith) April 10, 2019

Supporting the bill

Republicans in favor of the bill said that they wanted to protect the “unborn” babies.

Rep. Tim Ginter, a Columbiana County Republican and ordained minister, quoted several Bible verses to argue that the fetus has a soul. He said that abortion supporters who rely on their faith to inform their beliefs are mistaken.

“This is not the mother’s body," he said. "This is a separate entity.”

Rep. Ron Hood, an Ashville Republican who opposes abortion, pointed to the inevitability of legal action.

“Will there be a lawsuit? Yeah, we’re counting on it," he said. "We’re excited about it. Because this will be the law that ultimately reverses Roe v. Wade. Or there is several things they could do. They could hand it down to the states.”

Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who has reached out to Democrats recently to get support for legislation, said he’s not concerned about the bill -- which he voted for --eroding his relationship with Democrats. He said they always understood they would agree on 95 percent of the issues and disagree on 5 percent.