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Ohio Death Penalty Opponents Question New Abortion Bill

Death penalty vigil.
Statehouse News Bureau
A woman who has an aborition could be subject to the death penalty under a new legislation.

Opponents of the death penalty say they are concerned about a newly proposed abortion ban that could charge a woman who gets an abortion, and a doctor who provides it, with a capital crime. It would make abortion punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death. 

Death Penalty Action’s Abe Bonowitz opposes the bill, which creates aggravated abortion murder as a new capital crime. He says putting someone to death for aborting a fetus is extreme.

“It’s a ridiculous and shameful way to stir up the pot,” he said.

Bonowitz questions the timing since a new Gallup poll shows support for the death penalty is dropping, even among Republicans. Ohio’s death penalty has been put on hold while the state looks for a new lethal injection method.  

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.
Karen is a lifelong Ohioan who has served as news director at WCBE-FM, assignment editor/overnight anchor at WBNS-TV, and afternoon drive anchor/assignment editor in WTAM-AM in Cleveland. In addition to her daily reporting for Ohio’s public radio stations, she’s reported for NPR, the BBC, ABC Radio News and other news outlets. She hosts and produces the Statehouse News Bureau’s weekly TV show “The State of Ohio”, which airs on PBS stations statewide. She’s also a frequent guest on WOSU TV’s “Columbus on the Record”, a regular panelist on “The Sound of Ideas” on ideastream in Cleveland, appeared on the inaugural edition of “Face the State” on WBNS-TV and occasionally reports for “PBS Newshour”. She’s often called to moderate debates, including the Columbus Metropolitan Club’s Issue 3/legal marijuana debate and its pre-primary mayoral debate, and the City Club of Cleveland’s US Senate debate in 2012.