|
This week, the focus has been on Washington during the impeachment hearings, but that hasn't stopped Ohio Republicans in the Statehouse from pushing through an extremist agenda attacking reproductive freedom and science.
At the same time, they're sidelining bills to expand access to affordable health care, increase wages or address the epidemic of gun violence.
Just this week, House Republican leaders brought up the "Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act" for a vote, which would allow teachers to mark religious-based answers as correct on exams -- even if they disregard scientific facts. This bill "could result in teachers accepting assignments that fly in the face of science."
Democratic lawmakers pointed out the bill was redundant and unnecessary. State Rep. Phil Robinson said, "We already have religious freedom protected at the federal and state level." However, the bill sailed through the House, with every Republican legislator voting in favor, and now it heads to the Senate.
That's not the only unscientific bill being pushed by Republican legislators -- last week, the Ohio Senate GOP approved legislation that would force doctors to lie to their patients and provide unproven and dangerous information about medication abortion.
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump called for women to be punished for abortion and committed to nominate Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and now Ohio Republicans are following Trump's lead, introducing legislation that could lead to doctors and patients being charged with murder for abortion care.
"This latest abortion ban from extreme, right-wing lawmakers is the most brazen and absurd attempt yet to deny Ohio women their fundamental freedoms, to interfere with the patient-doctor relationship and disproportionately target communities of color across Ohio," Ohio House Democratic Leader Emilia Sykes said.
The Ohio GOP's attacks on science don't stop there. There have been more than 1,000 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. this year -- after the disease was declared to be eliminated here nearly two decades ago -- but state Rep. Don Manning is still pushing an anti-vaccination agenda. One of Manning's first acts as a state legislator was to introduce anti-vaxxer legislation that the Columbus Dispatch editorial board called a "menace to public health."
|
