YES: It was one of the biggest differences between candidates

Ten days before Christmas, I sat in an operating room holding my newborn daughter as doctors worked quickly, but calmly, behind a curtain. Moments earlier they had delivered a 7-pound, 5-ounce, full-term nugget of perfection via a successful cesarean section.

As we waited for the doctors to finish my wife’s procedure, I stared into my little girl’s eyes, and sang Christmas carols to welcome her into this world. This was one of those moments — one of those rare experiences that you know even at the time you’ll never forget.

Yet today when I think back to it, it has taken on a more somber meaning. I’m haunted by the thought that now in New York, children my daughter’s size, with similar beautiful eyes, sweet cries, and kicking feet can be aborted, legally.

The state of New York chose a path this week: one that would allow a doctor to abort a child at the same size and development as my daughter on that December day.

It should be clear, New York has been heading down this path for years. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a national think tank that supports abortion, New York has the second-highest abortion rate in the country.

Yet there’s something especially insidious about this latest move, something different. There’s a certain kind of heartlessness required to permit a child to be aborted that is days or even hours away from birth.

Further, the New York law also puts the health and safety of women at risk.

Ironically titled the “Reproductive Health Act,” the law allows nondoctors to perform abortions. That includes physician assistants, nurse practitioners and midwives.

And New York leaders seem to be quite pleased with this destructive path. In a bleak and ominous video, you can watch this bill be approved with thunderous applause and cheers from the New York General Assembly. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also ordered that One World Trade Center be lit up in pink to hail this tragedy.

Thankfully, Ohio has chosen a different path — and in resounding fashion.

Perhaps the starkest difference in the recent Ohio gubernatorial election was the candidates’ positions on abortion. The Dispatch said it best in an Oct. 14 story when Public Affairs Editor Darrell Rowland wrote that the abortion issue was one of the “biggest differences” between Mike Dewine and Richard Cordray. Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, knew this, too, and launched a Super PAC focused on this race, fearing Mike Dewine’s pro-life track record.

It was clear that in November, Ohioans were clearly offered two paths. And unlike New York, they chose the path of life.

Not only did Ohioans elect Mike Dewine by a comfortable margin, they also elected pro-life candidates to all five statewide offices, while returning majorities to the Ohio House and Senate that have continually passed pro-life bill after pro-life bill in the past eight years.

And just days ago, when Gov. Dewine was asked on the Hugh Hewitt Show if he would sign the “heartbeat bill,” a law to prohibit abortion once a heartbeat is detected in an unborn child, Gov. Dewine answered unequivocally: “Yes. Absolutely.”

The difference between Ohio’s path and New York’s path is as stark as day and night, and life and death.

In Ohio, the pro-life community’s successful advocacy for the heartbeat bill will mean thousands of children every year will get to experience the gift of life. Like my daughter, these children will also get to experience the joy of their Christmas, and their first snow.

Yet in New York, some unborn children on the brink of taking their first breath will be terminated.

And in place of the sweet cries of a newborn child will be deafening silence.

Aaron Baer is the president of Citizens for Community Values, a Christian public policy organization that supports the heartbeat bill.