REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH CARE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 30, 2015

Elected Women Fight Back
New bills announced to remove attacks on reproductive health care

COLUMBUS, OH – Today, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio was joined by members of the Ohio House of Representatives and Planned Parenthood in calling for new legislation to improve access to women’s health care, including safe and legal abortion. Rep. Greta Johnson announced six pieces of legislation that combined will:

  • Remove the medically unnecessary requirement that clinics have transfer agreements
  • Allow public hospitals to provide abortion care
  • Allow insurance coverage for abortion
  • Repeal the 24-hour waiting period for abortion care
  • Create avenues for abortion clinics to fight harassment
  • Ban crisis pregnancy centers from using tax dollars to provide medically inaccurate information to women

NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland offered the following statement: “A woman who decides to have an abortion deserves access to safe and legal care for the procedure. Once she has made her decision, her health is best protected by getting an abortion procedure as early as possible. Forcing a woman to travel outside her community, delaying her procedure for a 24 hour reflection period, or forcing her to scrape together money because her insurance is banned from covering the procedure are all barriers that designed to prevent her from accessing abortion care with a safe, licensed health care provider. Today’s new legislation will remove these obstacles.

“John Kasich’s 16 new restrictions on reproductive health care and the closure of half of Ohio’s abortion clinics has resulted in women delaying their procedures or fleeing to other states, including Michigan. John Kasich is creating a pending health crisis for women seeking an abortion. It is wrong to endanger women’s’ health for political gain, or ideological reasons. That is why we support this group of legislation.”The 2014 Ohio Induced Abortion Report indicated a decrease in abortions performed in Ohio, but a similar report in Michigan showed an increase in procedures performed on women from outside that state.

Further analysis of the 2014 Ohio Abortion Report reveals that the percentage of abortions that are performed in the first nine weeks of pregnancy declined from 56.5 percent to 52.3 percent. Correspondingly, the percentage of abortions performed between 9-12 weeks rose from 28.5 percent to 31.3 percent. Abortions performed between 13-18 weeks rose from 12.6 percent to 14 percent. This indicates that women have to delay access to care due to Kasich’s barriers and clinic closures.

2014 Ohio Induced Abortion Report: http://www.odh.ohio.gov/healthstats/vitalstats/abortionmainpage.aspx

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Contact: Kellie Copeland 330.524.1577
http://www.prochoiceohio.org/media/press.shtml

Sincerely,Gabriel Mann
Communications Manager
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio
61 Jefferson Avenue, Columbus, OH 43215
614-930-6428