Bill restricting abortions passes Ohio Legislature

Chrissie Thompson | The Cincinnati Enquirer

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Amid shouts of "Shame on you" and several GOP "no" votes, Ohio's Republican-led House and Senate on Thursday passed a state budget that included several anti-abortion measures.

Gov. John Kasich now has until 11:59 p.m. EDT Sunday to make any line-item vetoes and sign the budget into law so it can take effect Monday. He has most frequently been called on to veto the anti-abortion provisions that General Assembly Republicans added to the budget. So far, he has declined to give his thoughts on the measures, saying only that he opposes abortion.

The $2.7 billion budget passed the House 53-44, with "no" votes from all Democrats and seven Republicans. In the Senate, a 21-11 vote included "no" votes from all Democrats, along with one Republican. Three lawmakers did not vote

The bill passed the Senate first, at around 3:30 p.m., but tension surrounding the vote started in the morning. About 80 red- and pink-clad abortion-rights supporters held a morning rally on the steps of the statehouse, including chants of "Line-item veto!" A handful of anti-abortion protesters, wearing black, faced the group in red, holding banners with pictures of aborted fetuses and slogans such as, "Abortion is murder."

A few dozen abortion-rights supporters stayed to watch the afternoon of debate in the Senate, drawing momentum from Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis' 10-hour filibuster on Tuesday. In Texas, protesters' loud disruption helped keep an anti-abortion bill from passing, for now. In Columbus, protesters stayed mostly silent until the budget passed the Senate.

Then they erupted in cries of "Shame on you! Shame on you!" over several anti-abortion measures in the budget, including an eleventh-hour provision that, barring a veto, will require a doctor to locate any fetal heartbeat and tell a woman about it before she has an abortion.

After the Senate outburst, abortion-rights advocates were detained outside the House and later confined to a specific area of the gallery, until Democratic Rep. Connie Pillich spoke to security.

"She told us it was a free country, and we could sit wherever we wanted to," said Alliea Phipps, of Norwood. Phipps said she had been told to sit behind a pillar, which obstructed her view, or leave the gallery, even though she had not been among the disruptive protesters in the Senate.

Republican House Speaker Bill Batchelder said he had asked for additional security because of rancorous gallery behavior when the House voted two years ago on a controversial anti-labor law later overruled by a voter referendum. In retrospect, the budget votes did not need as much security, he said.

"People were very polite," he said. "The only thing I feel bad about is that I did not anticipate their (good) attitude."