Ohio Politicians Need To Stop Practicing Medicine Without A Licence

*For Immediate Release*

Ohio Politicians Need To Stop Practicing Medicine Without A Licence

Toledo, October 2, 2019 — It seems like every­day the Ohio leg­is­la­ture is intro­duc­ing or pass­ing yet anoth­er abor­tion restric­tion bill. The claim is it is sav­ing babies or pro­tect­ing the health of the moth­er, but it seems that is lie. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie demand that Ohio politi­cians stop prac­tic­ing med­i­cine with­out a licence as they unfair­ly and unjust­ly reg­u­late women while ignor­ing actu­al med­ical sci­ence.

In April of 2019, the Ohio leg­is­la­ture, despite med­ical sci­ence, approved a law to ban abor­tion when a “heart­beat” is detect­ed.

Ohio Rep. John Becker (R‑65) intro­duced a bill that would pro­hib­it PRIVATE insur­ance com­pa­nies from offer­ing cov­er­age for abor­tion ser­vices includ­ing some birth con­trol devices and drugs.

In an inter­view Becker said:

“When you get into the con­tra­cep­tion and abor­ti­fa­cients, that’s clear­ly not my area of exper­tise but I sup­pose, if it were true that what we typ­i­cal­ly known as the pill would be clas­si­fied as an abor­ti­fa­cient, then I would imag­ine the drug man­u­fac­tur­ers would refor­mu­late it so it’s no longer an abor­ti­fa­cient and is strict­ly a con­tra­cep­tive,” Becker says.

and

“Part of that treat­ment would be remov­ing that embryo from the fal­lop­i­an tube and rein­sert­ing it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abor­tion under this bill,” Becker explains.(1)

Sen. Peggy Lehner, R‑Kettering intro­duced a bill that would man­date that at least 24 hours before pre­scrib­ing med­ica­tion to ter­mi­nate a preg­nan­cy, doc­tors pro­vide women with infor­ma­tion stat­ing that “it may be pos­si­ble to reverse the intend­ed effects of a mifepri­s­tone abor­tion if she changes her mind, but time is of the essence.”

“This leg­is­la­tion is intend­ed to give anoth­er choice to women who are in des­per­ate sit­u­a­tions. We are not forc­ing any­one to take the abortion-pill rever­sal treat­ment — we sim­ply want to give women more infor­ma­tion on anoth­er option avail­able to them,” Lehner said.(2)

US Rep. Bob Latta (R‑5) intro­duced House Resolution 4399 which would amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act “to pro­hib­it the approval of new abor­tion drugs, to pro­hib­it inves­ti­ga­tion­al use exemp­tions for abor­tion drugs, and to impose addi­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments with respect to pre­vi­ous­ly approved drugs.”

In a press release Latta said, chem­i­cal­ly induced abor­tions now account for a larg­er per­cent­age of ter­mi­na­tions and they are more dan­ger­ous then sur­gi­cal abor­tions.(3)

Rep. Latta also recent­ly post­ed, on social media, a pho­to of him­self at a fundrais­ing event for a Bowling Green preg­nan­cy “resource” cen­ter.

There is anoth­er bill pro­posed in the Ohio leg­is­la­ture that would force pub­lic schools to teach anti-abortion pro­pa­gan­da. The bill specif­i­cal­ly excludes ANYONE who actu­al­ly per­forms abor­tions from con­tribut­ing to the new cur­ricu­lum.(4)

What do all these have in com­mon?

The peo­ple who intro­duce these bills seem to be prac­tic­ing med­i­cine with­out a licence. Each of them have giv­en state­ments or intro­duced bills that prove they don’t know what they are talk­ing about when it comes to abor­tion and med­ical sci­ence.

Republicans in Columbus passed a “heart­beat” bill even though it has no basis in actu­al sci­ence. Doctors have said that there is no heart to detect a beat from at six weeks.(5)

Rep. Becker’s idea that ectopic or tubal preg­nan­cies can be treat­ed by “remov­ing that embryo from the fal­lop­i­an tube and rein­sert­ing it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abor­tion under this bill,” is utter­ly ridicu­lous and is not a treat­ment for those dan­ger­ous preg­nan­cies accord­ing to peo­ple who are actu­al­ly Doctors.

Doctors have explained that Sen. Lehner’s fever dream of revers­ing an abor­tion has no sup­port in sci­ence or the real world.

Rep. Latta sup­ports his pro­posed law on false infor­ma­tion. 30% of ter­mi­na­tions use med­ica­tion the rest is still sur­gi­cal, so it is not “larg­er” as Latta states. Also com­pli­ca­tions from abor­tion is still less than most reg­u­lar med­ical pro­ce­dures. In Ohio, in 2018, only 27 women report­ed com­pli­ca­tions out of over 20,000 ter­mi­na­tions.(6)

Latta’s social media pic­ture also calls into ques­tion his sup­port of preg­nan­cy resource cen­ters. These cen­ters walk a fine legal line by look­ing like a med­ical clin­ic with­out actu­al­ly claim­ing to be one. Unlike a typ­i­cal abor­tion clin­ic you will not get any actu­al med­ical advice at a PRC. They will refer you to a real med­ical facil­i­ty while giv­ing you all kinds of mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion to trick you into car­ry­ing your preg­nan­cy to full term.(7)

We have a seri­ous prob­lem in this coun­try with ignor­ing sci­ence when pub­lic laws and poli­cies are con­cerned. It’s the same route we’ve gone where peo­ple are refus­ing to vac­ci­nate their chil­dren and now we have a resur­gence in Measles cas­es.

Laws that reg­u­late med­ical prac­tices should be based on actu­al med­ical sci­ence research and if not, those pro­posed laws should be dead on arrival. The fact these sci­ence igno­rant laws get a hear­ing and some are passed into law should trig­ger an inves­ti­ga­tion of law­mak­ers for prac­tic­ing med­i­cine with­out a licence.

Enough is enough.

About Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

Media Contact

Douglas Berger — President
419–322-6422

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