A modest proposal to rebrand Ohio's "Heart Beat Bill"

Jezebel shared this irritating ad from Ohio ProLife Action about the State's controversial Heart Beat Bill :



It's not just the low production values, awful script, and nasally voiceover that I find irksome. It's the missed opportunity.

If you want people to visualize a "busload of children" being killed every day the anti-abortion bill (which bans termination at about about 6 weeks from conception) is delayed, you need to do more than show a bunch of home movie shots. You need to move people.

After all, just getting people to see a 6-week-old human embryo as a child can be a bit of a stretch:

Especially since up to a third of conceptions miscarry—80% of them within the first 12 weeks. So even Mother Nature isn't onboard with your mission to "protect all innocent human life".

No, if we're going to get people to back this bill we need to give them something to get their hearts and fists pumping. Don't just show the busload of kids. Show them at the mercy of a psychopath bent on their destruction. And don't just promote a bill, give the thing some personality and have it kick psycho ass and literally save the day.

You know what I'm getting at here? This story has been told before. You know who else saved a whole busload of embryos — I mean, children — in a single day?

Dirty Goddamn Harry, that's who.

Here (new window) is how that PSA should have gone down.

You can call it the "Dirty Harry Bill". Or the "Do you feel a heartbeat, punk?" ... umm, Bill.

It's got everything the religious right likes:

• Clear-cut good and evil (okay, Harry's a racist and sexist who wants all criminals dead, but those are virtues in some circles).
• Guns. They love their guns.
• Awesome funky soundtrack. (Just tell them it's a new kind of "Baptist Gospel")
• Innocent victims.
• Clint. (Although he is no longer a Republican, he was then.)

I really think they should consider buying up this footage. Either that, or mitigate high abortion rates by providing youth with harm reduction based sex education and really easy access to contraceptives, as well as by addressing the fundamental socioeconomic problems behind unwanted pregnancy.

Nah, definitely Dirty Harry.

Tip via Jezebel.