Republican from Ohio calls for abolition of the death penalty

A Republican from Ohio is once again calling for the abolition of the death penalty in her state.

Last year, Ohio lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to abolish the death penalty in the state, but the bill never made it out of committee.

The state's continued inability to obtain drugs for lethal injection led to an unofficial moratorium on executions in the state, after which Republican Gov. Mike DeWine directed lawmakers to find an alternative method in 2020. He has since postponed several executions.

Republican Senator Michele Reynolds said now is the time to push for the abolition of the death penalty in Ohio.

Reynolds said she wanted to abolish the death penalty in her state because she was “pro-life.”

“The pro-life movement is really about the whole life, the whole life,” she said, according to WBNS-10TV.

Proponents of the death penalty often point to the families of victims, but Reynolds said executions do not necessarily bring closure to the past for them.

“Many families have spoken about the death penalty because they have appealed and because they have had to go through it all again and not get real justice,” she said.

Newsweek has emailed Reynolds for comment. DeWine and the offices of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost were also emailed for comment.

According to the 2023 Capital Crimes Report from Yost's office, there are currently 119 inmates on the state's death row. The cost of executing all of those inmates could be between $121 million and $363 million, according to the report.

Ohio is one of six states where executions have been halted by executive action, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The last execution in the state was on July 18, 2018.

Ohio is one of 27 states that still has the death penalty, while 23 states and Washington, DC have abolished it, including Midwestern states: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

“I just think at this point we can join the other Midwestern states and move forward in this conversation, and I think it's a conversation worth having,” Reynolds said.

Both use of the death penalty and public support for it are declining, but the push to abolish it in Ohio comes as other state lawmakers are pushing to reinstate executions in the state.

House Bill 392 would allow death row inmates to choose between lethal injection and nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution. If funds for lethal injection are not available, nitrogen hypoxia would be used for execution.

Earlier this year, Alabama became the first state to execute an inmate using the method, which critics have called cruel and experimental.