OHIO: LAME DUCKS SELL OUT FAMILIES, EXPAND SAFE HAVENS. CONSIDER ABANDONMENT A GIFT FROM MOM!
December 9 the lame duck Ohio House voted unanimously (92-0) to amend the state’s “safe haven” law. The Senate had already approved the measure in May. A record of the votes in both houses is here SB 304 expands the age infants can be “legally abandoned” from 3 days to 30 days, moving Ohio from the low to close to the high end of the traffick scale. It also adds an “educational” component, authorizing the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) in collaboration with the Ohio Children First Cabinet Council, to create a program “for informing at-risk populations who are most likely to voluntarily deliver a child under [appropriate sections of the Ohio Revised Code.]” Translation: every female over the age of 9. Passage, unfortunately, is no surprise. On May 22, SB 304 passed the Senate 32-1 Twenty-one out of our 33 senators sponsored the bill. Sen. Jeff Jacobson (R-Butler Twn.) the lone dissenter said of the bill: I don’t believe that the link is so clear that those who are distraught enough to consider destroying a life after a birth will be deterred from that because they find out there is a legal way to rid themselves Continue Reading →