Ohio Women, Join the Pregnancy Roster

In Ohio, House Bill 754 introduced earlier this month would create a statewide pregnancy registry beginning with a government issued “certificate of life” meant to chronicle and track pregnancies as soon as possible in the gestational period. Included in the legislature written by Representative Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland), the certificate must be filed by any medical professional that detects a fetal heartbeat during an examination within 10 days to the Ohio Department of Health. A copy of the certificate would be given to the woman. Each certificate would be catalogued inside a database detailing the results of every pregnancy in Ohio.

Each fetal death would be registered with local vital statistics, no matter their length. According to current Ohio law, fetal death certificates are required after 20 weeks of gestation. This new law overrides that benchmark. Fetal death certificates would specifically detail whether the cause was due to miscarriage, stillbirth, or induced abortion.

Take note, the initial heartbeat that would create the certificate is not a baby. It is a cluster of cells that will eventually form into what is known as the heart.

If a fetal death occurs under circumstances that Ohio law views as suspicious, violent, or unusual, then a coroner or medical examiner must be contacted certify the cause of death within 48 hours, and log it to the registry. To date there isn’t any language or instruction in this bill or Ohio law that explains how to define a “suspicious” fetal death.

This isn’t the first act of a dystopian drama where groups of lawyers argue the merits of this law’s adoption to the wider public. It’s 2026 and this bill will be read by eyes and enter the minds of the local government in one state of the U.S.

First, this bill ignores right to privacy concerns of the patient. How is this proposal beneficial to the citizens of Ohio?

Outside of the constantly increasing Christian flavored religious zealotry that has always been a component in the U.S. government, this doesn’t center women. A lot if this — other bills, and even the Iran “excursion” — is being explained to Americans as work from Jesus. Directly.

What could someone who governs like a dictator — with a government that refuses to stop him and agrees with his worldview no matter the message — do with this law if it were to pass in one state? What would his intent be?

HB 754 would make all pregnancies acutely scarier than they already are. Mind you, this is an engineered worry right atop the cost to feed, raise, and care for a child even if the parent achieves the bare minimum in doing so. Under this bill, they’re subject to the eyes of the government in the most life altering decision that the majority of women will ever weigh. It isn’t conjecture, an overreach as a byproduct of the polarized politics of the nation, or hyperbole to state that they’re having their lives controlled. It pulls their healthcare concerns from their grasp and submits it to the state. Literally. Intentionally. Legally.

This is surveillance of the wombs of Ohio. Women having the duration of their pregnancy monitored. Wanted or otherwise. It’s productive to send investigators and possibly police to the front door of a grieving would-be parent. The percentage of those house visits ending in an arrest isn’t zero. The creation of a registry all but wills that possibility into probability. There will be arrests, court dates and convictions if this bill were to graduate from embryonic consideration to law of the state.

It’s not difficult to deduce that the goal is to hold power of the wombs of expectant mothers. It wouldn’t be surprising if a core aim is to be efficient in surveying the wombs of white women. Would the level of care be this high if it was an abundant number of Black women available? Ohio boasts a Black population of 14.53%.

Well…

After a bit of quiet thought, consider that they would. Frankly, while they wish to come down hard on white women, they need Black babies - and those from every minority group. The nation needs citizens to oppress, lord power and religion over, and set loose into a societal system that confines them just enough that some might make ill choices early in their lives due to a lack of upward mobility. Whites need for-profit prison customers, and as many wage-slaves in the job market as possible. For American prosperity.

You can’t uncover the exact reasoning behind a draft meant to make it to passage but you can pick at the consequences it could yield. Intended or not. Racial or not. Helpful or not. A material good for the overall society or not. The magnitude that this could have sets in motion a state that suffocates the liberty and pursuit of happiness of American families. Purposely. It’s composed to solve a problem that doesn’t truly exist.

Who runs and has undisturbed access to the database? For what purpose?

The local government to start off. At least in the early stages before it inevitably spreads in a country with half of its population identifying as patriotic members of MAGA. It’s anti-abortion. It’s against the rights of women to make the choices for the body that belongs to her. It’s lunacy. MAGA takes its cues in this from the Confederacy and weaves it into divine scripture from the bible they like to carry but barely read. They have an unquenchable thirst to subjugate Americans.

Is this the small government that MAGA clamors for?

A registry of pregnancies is a glaring antithesis of that. I guess I’m wrong.

The bill’s author is a woman who will hand this to the powerful men in her state. Louder MAGA voices across the U.S. have hoped for actions in this direction before they slid on red hats. Dictating the womb of the American mother has its roots in every white nationalist, Christian-right, Christian nationalist, great replacement fear that has ever entered the mind of man.

It stands to reason that a woman would never agree to a step so drastic, invading, and punitive to her entire gender.

Yet, the author is the author. Why?

Proximity to white supremacy. White women benefit from the reign of white men. It’s probably the biggest reason white women abandoned every other cohort of their gender in order to vote for the current president. For many, it was the third consecutive presidential election that they did.

What other reasons are there?

Miscarriages are commonplace. Medically induced abortions also, oftentimes advised and enacted to save the life of the mother. A woman deciding that she doesn’t want to bring a new life into this world or even a fairer version…that’s her right and hers alone. Elective abortions are common. Not under this law.

A possible Board of Fetal Justice would have a dossier of women to criminalize. delivered to them by the state with little need for much investigation. The fetal death certificate will give the board a lot of room to administer justice.

Who would they answer to? How could an appeal to one of their rulings be filed?

Even if this bill never receives anything more than a scoff, take a moment to ponder the type of person that would put this to a vote. Consider the mind that would compose it. This is not meant to serve as a scream of craziness or to highlight belligerence. I’m sure this was written by someone sound of mind who concluded that her legislation is for the greater good of women in American society. That’s the reality. That’s what makes it revealing.

Trump voter, this is who represents you. Dare I say that you’re comfortable with it. Your ballot is your permission.

When Americans were presented with the choice of a reasonable alternative, 49.9% of voters selected this administration.