Women protest Ohio abortion bill in 'Handmaid's Tale' garb
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - More than a dozen women have staged a protest against a proposed ban on Ohio's most common abortion procedure while dressed in character from the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale."
The group attended a committee hearing Tuesday at the Statehouse while wearing red capes and white bonnets. The costumes resemble those worn in a new television series based on Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel in which women are forced to give birth.
They were fighting legislation criminalizing what anti-abortion activists call "dismemberment abortion." The medical term is dilation and evacuation.
In this Tuesday, June 13, 2017 photo, women dressed in character from the dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" stage a protest in the Ohio Statehouse Rotunda, in Columbus, against a bill criminalizing the state's most common abortion procedure. (Jo Ingles/Ohio Public Radio/TV)
The bill would prohibit doctors from using forceps or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces. Seven states have such bans.
Similar costumed protests to anti-abortion bills have taken place elsewhere, including in Texas and Missouri.