Republican state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann is set to unveil the Heartbeat Bill on Wednesday. Ohio will be the testing ground for this new approach in limiting abortions.

The Heartbeat Bill would prohibit women from ending pregnancies at the first detection of a fetal heartbeat.

It is the first proposal of its kind in the nation, with Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma among states watching closely.

The bill was created by Janet Folger Porter, a native Ohioan and president of the conservative interest group Faith2Action. She says she helped craft the nation’s first ban on late-term abortions as a then-legislative director at Ohio Right to Life and again picked Ohio to be at the forefront. Forty of 99 Ohio representatives have signed onto the heartbeat bill.
“We can’t carry all the babies out of the burning building in one trip, but this bill will carry most of them out with it,” Porter said. “With this legislation, we can save more than 20,000 lives a year. We’ve been taking baby steps for a long time. This is a leap.”

Porter’s bill is garnering support and she hopes to get the backing of Republican Governor John Kasich and the Republican-controlled state Legislature.

So far, a spokesman for Kasich said the governor “is pro-life and believes in the sanctity of life” but will not weigh in on individual pieces of pending legislation.

However, this bill is not garnering support among the pro-life community because it will possibly be DOA in the courts.