American Civil Liberties Union

Ohio lawmakers are poised this week to pass the most restrictive law in the nation preventing families from making important health decisions on pregnancy. House Bill 125 would prohibit abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. That means even before a woman may know she is pregnant, she and her family will not have a full range of medical options available to them.

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

I've heard the expression, "It's like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic" many times to describe someone's ambivalence towards a monumental problem, but it has never rung as true as it does today.

Less than three months after the unprecedented failed execution of Romell Broom, in which officials had to abandon the procedure because they could not locate a viable vein, the state has reopened its death chamber. At 11 a.m. on December 8, 2009, Kenneth Biros was executed using an untested, experimental one-drug protocol devised by the state in the weeks following Broom's botched execution. The state publicly unveiled the procedure in late November, giving them only a few weeks to implement it and train the execution team on the new protocols.