By Woodrow J. Hinton

When State Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr. introduced a bill banning all abortion in Ohio, he knew it violated Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion. That's exactly why he did it.

By introducing House Bill 228 to the Ohio House of Representatives April 28, Brinkman (R-Mount Lookout) joins pro-life lawmakers across the country who are pushing anti-abortion legislation. Their hope is that at least one bill will end up in front of the Supreme Court in three or four years, by which time they expect President Bush to have appointed at least one justice sympathetic to their cause.

The movement isn't terribly organized, but there's a reason for differences between his sweeping bill and, say, South Dakota's more tempered one, according to Brinkman.

"If we all passed the same (bill), then when they knocked out one of us they'd knock us all out," he says. "So it's our opportunity to put different ones across the plate, hoping that one will be the magic bullet."

Woman as vessel
He points out that even overturning Roe vs. Wade wouldn't end legal abortion; the decision would just revert to the states.

The decision Ohio would make is little in doubt, according to a 2004 NARAL Pro-Choice America report called, "Who Decides?"

Based on the political leanings of their governors and legislatures, Ohio and 18 other states would quickly ban abortion, says Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

In only 13 states would abortion probably not be at risk, she says.

Anticipating that, Brinkman's bill also prohibits transporting a woman across county or state lines for an abortion. Doing so would carry the same charge as an in-state abortion: first- or second-degree felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Only when it's medically necessary to save a woman's life would Brinkman's bill allow abortion. But that never happens anyway, he says.

"It's a fallacy perpetrated by the Planned Parenthood people," Brinkman says. "My doctors tell me they're never in that type of dilemma."

"Isn't that nice, coming from a non-medical person?" says Debi Jackson. "Like he would know."

Jackson heads Cincinnati Women's Services, which takes what she calls a "holistic approach" to abortion. About two-thirds of the 1,200 pregnant women who come to her every year were using some form of birth control, she says.

She thinks the tenor of current legislative dealings bode ill for women's rights.

"It's not possible for something to be living inside you and have equal rights," she says. "It's becoming quite clear that a woman is just a vessel until the child is born."

Jackson is embroiled in a lawsuit opposing yet another state bill that tightens informed consent requirements, effectively making it harder for battered women to get abortions.

Nor is this Brinkman's first attempt to restrict abortion. Last year the state legislature passed his bill requiring the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone, also known as RU-486, to be administered in a dosage widely recognized to be three times higher than medically necessary -- rendering the procedure three times more expensive. That bill is also tied up in lawsuits.

Last week another state representative, Michelle Schneider (R-Madeira), introduced a bill prohibiting the use of public funds or facilities for all abortions except to save the life of a mother. That means rape victims on Medicaid are triply out of luck.

Meanwhile, a bill sponsored by State Sen. Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo) that would require insurance companies to cover contraceptives can't even get a legislative hearing.

'I was abstinent'
So what would Brinkman say to a young girl pregnant by her uncle?

"I would just tell that 13 year old -- I know they're (going) through a traumatic situation -- number one, it's not the baby's fault," he says. "Number two, we should have adoption choices available."

He also points out that not all women who become pregnant by rape or incest want abortions.

That's very true, says Ann MacDonald, executive director of the Rape Crisis and Abuse Center of Hamilton County, formerly Women Helping Women, which provides crisis intervention and support services for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. But that doesn't mean they should be denied the option, she says.

The agency doesn't do pregnancy counseling, though, so MacDonald doesn't know how many of the at least 1,000 rape victims she sees yearly end up facing that decision.

"Women and girls who are victims of sexual assault and incest have just had a horrific, traumatic experience which was out of their control," she says. "It's important for them to have the ability to make their own decision about an unwanted and uninvited pregnancy."

Paula Westwood, executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, uses different logic to argue that men win and women lose when a child of rape is aborted.

"What has happened is, men know, 'Well, if I happen to rape a woman, I can have her get an abortion,' and then even if he goes to prison he's free of all responsibility," she says. "If (victims of rape) can carry the child to term, they're free from any guilt from an abortion and they're also freer because the man really has no hold on them, because even though the man fathered the child the woman has some victory over it."

She also likes the simplicity of Brinkman's bill.

"Having abortion-ban legislation that bans all abortion on demand and then saying, 'Ah, here's an exception,' it's kind of inconsistent," she says.

Brinkman himself talks up the consistency of his pro-life platform, which includes opposition to the death penalty. Yet the only sex education he condones is for what he calls "the only 100 percent effective birth control" -- abstinence.

"I was abstinent," he says.

That discrepancy is why people such as Sue Momeyer, president of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region, accuse Brinkman of caring more about pandering to extremist politics than about the health of half their state's constituents.

"They're using women's health and women's lives as political football," Momeyer says. "If they are serious about wanting to prevent the need for abortion, they need to focus on preventing unintended pregnancy. This is the same legislature that cuts Medicaid for women and children and that decimated the state family planning program." ©