Democrat candidates for five Ohio statewide offices received donations from partial-birth abortion pioneer Martin Haskell last month, based on reports filed with the secretary of state.

Haskell made the following $4,500 in campaign contributions in August:

• $1,000 to gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald
• $1,000 to attorney general candidate David Pepper
• $1,000 to secretary of state candidate Nina Turner
• $1,000 to treasurer candidate Connie Pillich
• $500 to auditor candidate John Patrick Carney

Haskell’s donations to Pillich this cycle now total $3,600. He has donated $1,500 each to FitzGerald and Pepper.

From 2010 through 2012, Haskell donated a sum of $4,600 to Ohio politicians, all Democrats. Of that subtotal, $750 went to Pillich.

Last month, Haskell’s clinic in Sharonville stopped performing abortions after ceding a years-long fight for exemption from state law. Haskell still performs abortions at a Dayton-area facility.

Martin Haskell is nationally known for his role in the debate over partial-birth abortion. In the 1990s, Haskell popularized the dilation and extraction method for abortions performed in the 20th week of pregnancy or later.

Haskell’s procedure involved “dilating the woman’s cervix, then pulling the fetus through it feet first until only the head remained inside. Using scissors or another sharp instrument, the head was then punctured, and the skull compressed, so it, too, could fit through the dilated cervix.”

That definition, by the way, is not from National Right to Life but from NPR.

In a 1993 interview, Haskell told American Medical News that 80 percent of his abortions performed after 20 weeks were “purely elective” and that roughly two-thirds of the babies he aborted by dilation and extraction were alive until he punctured their skulls.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 was enacted in response to the work of Haskell and others performing similar procedures, and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.

While they aren’t nearly as blunt as Haskell, Ohio Democrats are natural allies for the man who inadvertently helped pass the national ban on partial-birth abortion.

MSNBC darling Nina Turner, who is also funded by out-of-state Planned Parenthood board member Corky Stoller, has asserted that Ohio Republicans’ restrictions on abortion “have everything to do with putting their feet on the necks of women and the progress we’ve made in this country.”

As a member of the Ohio Senate, Turner has introduced legislation to regulate erectile dysfuction drugs in protest against abortion restrictions, insisting both are matters of “reproductive health.”

Doomed gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald’s running mate Sharen Neuhardt is a former board member of Planned Parenthood of the Greater Miami Valley.

Ohio’s current governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor are all Republicans. Since Gov. John Kasich took office in 2011, the Republican-led Ohio General Assembly has taken steps to ensure abortion clinics meet the same safety standards as other surgical facilities.

Combined with a ban on taxpayer-funded hospitals signing transfer agreements with abortion providers, a mandate that all clinics have such agreements in place in case of emergency has threatened the businesses of Haskell and others like him.