COLUMBUS, Ohio — Lawmakers in Ohio failed by a single vote on Thursday to override Gov. John Kasich’s veto of a proposed bill that would have banned abortion when a heartbeat is detected. A number of those in the Senate chambers broke into cheers upon realizing that the effort had failed, a reaction that one group called “sickening.”
According to reports, the Ohio House approved the motion to override Kasich’s veto of House Bill 258 60-28, sending the effort on to the Senate for a vote. While the Senate voted 19-13 in favor of the override, 20 yea votes were needed to meet the required two-thirds majority.
A video posted to social media by the pro-life group Created Equal captures the sound of cheering and applause after the tally was announced. The organization characterized the boisterous response as “sickening cheering for child killing.”
Senate President Larry Obhof, a Republican, told the Associated Press that he believes the cause for rejoicing won’t last for long.
“I think that the celebration for some of the people in here will be short-lived,” Obhof stated. “We will have a supermajority that is pro-life in both chambers in the next General Assembly—we’re getting sworn in in less than two weeks—and we have a governor coming in who has said he would sign that bill.”
Sen. Bill Beagle, R-Tipp City, who would have been the 20th vote, told local television station NBC4 that he didn’t think the bill “met the standard” for an override.
“Ultimately, you have to vote your conscience,” he said. “I’ve supported the bill in the past. I’m a pro-life voter. They may not consider me so after today, but I’ve always been there on their issues. In the eight years that I’ve been here, we’ve passed a lot of pro-life legislation, and the governor signed them.”
“[I]t goes beyond the legislation itself,” Beagle stated. “And that’s why this is different from when I was in committee voting for this bill, and why I was on the floor voting for this bill the first time. It rises, as I said, to a different standard.”
As previously reported, the Ohio House of Representatives passed H.B. 258 last month 60-35, followed by the Senate earlier this month 18-13.
“A person who intends to perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman shall determine whether there is a detectable fetal heartbeat of the unborn human individual the pregnant woman is carrying,” the bill read in part. “The person who performs the examination for the presence of a fetal heartbeat shall give the pregnant woman the option to view or hear the fetal heartbeat.”
Kasich vetoed the measure after it reached his desk, as he had likewise done in 2016.
“As governor, I have worked hard to strengthen Ohio’s protections for the sanctity of human life, and I have a deep respect for my fellow members of the pro-life community and their ongoing efforts in defense of unborn life,” Kasich wrote in his veto explanation. “However, the central provision of H.B. 258, that an abortion cannot be performed if a heartbeat has been detected in the unborn child, is contrary to the Supreme Court rulings on abortion.”
“Because the lower federal courts are bound to follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents on abortion, H.B. 258 will likely be struck down as unconstitutional. The State of Ohio will be the losing party in that lawsuit, and as the losing party, the State of Ohio will be forced to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to cover the legal fees for the pro-choice activists’ lawyers,” he outlined. “Therefore, this veto is in the public interest.”
Kasich did sign a bill that bans dismemberment (dilation and evacuation) abortions.
Jesus said in John 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
He also declared in John 7:7, “The world cannot hate you, but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.”
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