Celina council votes down abortion ban on first reading
Oct. 27—CELINA — Celina City Council on Monday evening voted down the first reading of an ordinance outlawing abortion and declaring Celina a sanctuary city for the unborn.
The vote was 4-2 against the ordinance, with council members June Scott, Mark Fleck, Myron Buxton and Eric Lochteld voting no and Eric Clauson and Eric Baltzell voting yes. Councilman Mike Sovinski was absent.
Mayor Jeffrey Hazel said Tuesday council members attempted to table the ordinance but did not have the necessary votes. The measure will go to a second reading, although Hazel said he believes the majority of council members "would like to see this go away."
Hazel said 50 persons spoke at Monday night's 3 1/2 -hour meeting. Thirty-five were in favor of the ordinance and 15 were opposed.
One Celina resident who spoke in opposition to the ordinance was Zoe Kriegel, a 2012 graduate of Celina High School and current student at Bowling Green State University.
Kriegel said in a telephone interview Tuesday that she "talked about the undue burden this (ordinance) would place on women, which would render the ordinance unconstitutional." She said access to reproductive health-care services are state and national issues and called the attempt to pass local legislation dealing with abortion an "overreach of city government."
Hazel said the proposed legislation was written by lawyers from the Texas-based Sanctuary City for the Unborn organization. Asked if he believed the proposed ordinance contained what could be considered by some to be inflammatory wording, the mayor answered, "Yes, I would say that it does."
He declined to offer a personal opinion on the ordinance, saying only that "we need to be reasonable and discuss this as adults."
Language contained in the document states that the Celina City Council "finds that human life begins at conception, that abortion is a murderous act of violence that purposefully and knowingly terminates an unborn human life," and that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, "which invented a constitutional right for pregnant women to kill their unborn children through abortion, is a lawless and unconstitutional act of judicial usurpation."
The proposed legislation leans heavily on the Ohio Human Rights and Heartbeat Protection Act, which outlawed and criminalized abortion statewide "if the unborn child has a detectable heartbeat." The Republican-led Ohio legislature passed legislation in April of 2019 that outlaws abortions as early as five or six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women know they're pregnant.
More than a dozen states have now adopted similar legislation, but those laws have been tied up in state and federal courts.
The legislation under consideration in Celina would impose up to a $2,500 fine and 12 months in prison for any person who performs an abortion inside the city limits, as well as any person "who aids or abets" an abortion.
The legislation would also ban the possession of abortion-inducing drugs and makes it a misdemeanor offense for individuals to "aid or abet abortions by providing financial assistance, transportation to an abortion clinic or other forms of logistical support, including employers and insurance companies who pay for abortions."
Council president Jason King told the (Celina) Daily Standard in August that he asked councilors to look at making Celina a sanctuary city or restricting abortion-providing facilities after several people had approached him with the idea.
Similar legislation was just approved in Mason, and in May was approved in Lebanon, both cities in Warren County in southwestern Ohio.
London (Ohio) City Council members say they want to hear from their constituents about the proposed law before acting.
