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Ohio Bill Would Force Women With Ectopic Pregnancies To Have ‘Reimplantation’ Surgery, A Procedure That Doesn’t Actually Exist

BY November 29, 2019

A proposed bill by Republican lawmakers in the Ohio state legislature would seek to ban abortion outright.

Perhaps in an attempt to address concerns from others about issues regarding a woman’s health or pregnancies that could threaten a woman’s life, the bill also includes a provision that would require doctors to address ectopic pregnancies by removing implanted eggs and embryos in the fallopian tube and reimplanting them in the uterus — a procedure that doctors point out is medically impossible.

Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Doctors performing an abortion to save the woman’s life but refusing to reimplant the egg or embryo could face a new charge the bill creates, called “abortion murder,” according to reporting from The Guardian.

Cleveland-based Dr. David Hackney tweeted his disdain for the bill, which is the second time lawmakers in the state have attempted to force doctors to carry out the impossible surgery.

“I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible,” Hackney wrote. “We’ll all be going to jail.”

Reproductive rights activist Lauren Rankin also voiced out criticism of the proposal, arguing that it could result in undue harm or even deaths for women who are subjugated to the procedure.

“Ectopic pregnancies “can be fatal without prompt treatment,” Rankin pointed out. “This bill, if it becomes law, could cost pregnant people their lives.”

The broader language found within the bill would ban abortion outright in the state. Likely, this bill is being promoted in order to challenge the longstanding decision from the Supreme Court within Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed women the right to abortion across the country in 1973. A number of bills in other states across the U.S. have also been passed in order to challenge established law.

Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants itself anywhere besides the uterus, though in the vast majority of cases this happens within the fallopian tubes. When the fertilized egg begins to grow into an embryo, it can result in ruptures within the tube, causing internal bleeding and threatening the woman’s life.

There are rare instances when a woman may be able to bring ectopic pregnancies to full term, but it’s estimated this only happens for 1 in 3 million patients. For all other ectopic pregnancies, the embryo is nonviable.

Around 1 to 2 percent of all pregnancies that happen are ectopic pregnancies. Most of the time, symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy don’t begin to appear until the eighth week.



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