Anti-Abortion Group Sends Children With Teddy Bears To Lobby Lawmakers

To win votes for one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the nation, an Ohio anti-abortion group has employed an unexpected team of lobbyists: children with teddy bears.

Ohio Senate staffer Leo Almeida says he was sitting in his office Tuesday morning when two young girls, who looked about nine or ten years old, walked in holding a teddy bear. One of the girls squeezed the bear, Almeida said, to play the ultrasound recording of a fetal heartbeat. She then recited a pre-written spiel asking state Sen. Capri Cafaro (D) to support the Ohio "heartbeat bill," a controversial anti-abortion bill that would ban abortion after the fetal heartbeat is detectable...

The tactic did not go over well with state senators.

"I'm not at all supportive of the bill, and I'm not supportive of them sending kids in my office with a teddy bear that mimics a heartbeat, either," Sen. Shirley Smith (D) told HuffPost. "I thought that was a very cheap exploitation of kids. I would rather them come in my office and ask to sit down and talk about it, rather than send a kid into my office. I didn't like it at all -- in fact, I didn't even want the teddy bear."

"It is an emotional kind of tactic, bringing young children in and having them bring teddy bears. I think that's a little low," Sen. Charleta Tavares (D) said. "I think on this very emotional and highly charged issue, people have already made up their minds."

The same day as the teddy bear deliveries, eight-year-old Christian Harrington delivered a speech about the heartbeat bill at the Ohio Statehouse. The Daily Record reports that he was barely tall enough to see over the podium...

Faith 2 Action, the anti-abortion group sponsoring the teddy bears, sent children into all 33 Ohio Senate offices on Tuesday morning to lobby for the abortion restriction bill. The fetal heartbeat can be heard as early as six weeks into the pregnancy -- more than three months earlier than the "fetal viability" limit set by the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

The group did not respond to calls for comment, nor did any state senator who supports the bill.