On May 10, Cleveland arts advocacy group Arts Cleveland sent out a call-to-action email titled “Advocacy Alert: Support Ohio Film Tax Credit.”
In it, it shared that, while the state Senate version of the budget keeps the existing film tax credit of $40 million annually, intended to lure film production companies to Ohio, the House version eliminates it. It urges people to call their state legislators and ask that the tax credit be kept, saying “We need the Ohio legislature to support all of Ohio’s creative industries, which generate more than $41 billion in economic activity and support nearly 290,000 jobs in Ohio annually.”
This is an exercise in futility, as House minority leader Emilia Sykes (D-Akron) pointed out in a tweet in which she wrote, “Looks like there is no need for the film tax credit after all,” in which she shared a story from NBC News via Clevelanddotcom that said, “Multiple production companies have announced they will no longer film in Georgia after the state passed a restrictive abortion law that’s similar to Ohio’s. The Georgia law also bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.”
So Ohio is unlikely to be the next stop for these boycotting companies. That’s especially true given that Republicans in the Ohio House have been receiving national ridicule for escalating their level of anti-woman insanity. There is now a proposal for a two-week abortion ban, as well as one to bar private insurance from covering abortion with language that could potentially outlaw the most effective forms of contraception. Most outrageously of all, it would allow treatment of ectopic pregnancies, which are fatal if left untreated, ONLY if the fetus is removed from its errant location and re-implanted in the uterus. That’s a medical procedure that doesn’t exist.
The sponsor of this idea, state rep. John Becker (R-Fantasyland), said ““When you get into the contraception and abortifacients, that’s clearly not my area of expertise,” as he goes on to suggest that if birth control pills are an “abortifacient” (preventing a fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus, which in some cases they do), manufacturers should just magically “reformulate” them so this doesn’t ever occur.
We wrote a few weeks ago about the other economic impacts of these misogynist bills, intended at their root to strip women of control of their lives and relegate them to second-class citizenship. Primarily, they send a signal to educated, talented young people and up-and-coming entrepreneurs — women but also thoughtful, concerned men — that Ohio is not a forward-thinking, open-minded, accepting place to put down roots.
Look, Arts Cleveland: a tax credit to bring film companies to Ohio is a nice idea. But as Ohio acquires a growing image as a state hostile to women’s rights, with a legislature mired in the past, attracting creative businesses is going to be more difficult. Why squander a tax break? Instead, work to elect a legislature that respects ALL its citizens, overturns the “Heartbeat” bill, and focuses on issues such as job creation, education and health care, and not constantly more onerous abortion restrictions and ways to get more guns on the street.