The Ohio House budget is known as "must-pass legislation," meaning that a version of it must be passed through the House, making it a prime target for loosely related political provisions.

Each year, the Ohio Department of Health produces the Ohio Abortion Report that provides information on the number and certain details of abortions performed in the past calendar year.

A new provision in the proposed Ohio House budget would extend the information required to be collected in the report and change the report from an annual to a monthly event.

"Everything is still happening via paper, and when the abortion report comes out on Oct. 1 of every year, which the law requires, it's for the previous year's information... so the information is stale," says Ohio Right to Life president Mike Gonidakis. 

The additional information that would be required to be collected includes each patient's education level, zip code, number of previous abortions, menstrual history, Rh factor in blood, and the method of contraception used at the time of conception, if any.

Abortion rights activists claim the additional requirements would harm the efficiency of abortion proceedings.

"What this legislature is doing is forcing healthcare staff to comply with even more medically unnecessary regulations, meaning fewer appointments for patients," says Jaime Miracle, deputy director of Abortion Forward.

"No one wants to wait longer to see a doctor because they're busy completing extra paperwork to satisfy some politician's agenda in the Ohio legislature."

On top of the additional paperwork, Miracle worries that the frequency of reports paired with the information gathered may harm the privacy of patients.

"Some of our counties have very low populations. If you are reporting the number of abortions per county by month, that could be an individual person."

Gonidakis disagrees, "I would love for them to challenge it because they would lose and lose badly... It doesn't violate the Ohio constitution any more than collecting COVID information or bourbon sales in the state of Ohio.

Other provisions in the budget include:

  • Limiting tax credits to Pregnancy Resource Centers to $750
  • Defining male and female as the only "two sexes" recognized in Ohio
  • Banning mental health facilities that promote social gender transitioning from receiving Medicaid funding
  • Banning taxpayer funds for youth shelters that "promote or affirm" gender transition
  • Requires libraries to remove material related to sexual orientation and gender identity from the children's section

The Ohio Senate will now decide if these provisions will remain. The budget must be signed by Gov. Mike DeWine by June 30.