The road to November’s general election will include many more debates over abortion and reproductive rights in Ohio.
The conversation is taking shape as the candidates campaign and their positions on maintaining the constitutional amendment approved by 57% of voters last November and the possibility of a national abortion ban by Republicans at the federal level.
Several processes and legislative measures make their way to the Ohio State House and judicial system.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost recently filed his dissent to a request filed in a Franklin County court by abortion providers to halt the 24-hour waiting period required by state law before an abortion can be performed, among other provisions challenged by the lawsuit.
In court documents, Yost affirmed a recent amendment to Ohio’s constitution that legalized abortion services and other reproductive treatments, and maintained an earlier concession that the amendment “repealed a 2019 Ohio law prohibiting most abortions, with certain exceptions, upon discovery of beatings.” fetal heart – approximately six weeks after conception.”
The law is still the subject of its own lawsuit in Hamilton County, where clinics have asked to lift a six-week abortion ban and as a result, the Ohio Supreme Court has said it will not intervene with a pause in enforcement of the law “due to a change in law.”
But the attorney general disagreed with the idea he believed health care providers were arguing: that the amendment “prohibits all abortion laws – and even some laws that have nothing to do with abortion or anything else covered in the amendment.” “.
“Just as it is the duty of a state government to respect the will of the people by invalidating a statutory provision that conflicts with the applicable language of the Ohio Constitution, so it is the duty of the state governor to respect the will of the people by defending statutory provisions that the amendment does not invalidate against baseless attack,” it said. Yost’s office in last week’s lawsuit.
Yost also argues that abortion clinics “do not have the right to challenge” provisions such as the waiting period provision, the requirement for patients to appear in person to hear potential risks and other information about abortion, and the requirement to perform an ultrasound examination to determine heartbeat.
Yost’s argument explains that while the amendment prohibits states from charging, punishing, prohibiting, interfering with, or discriminating against anyone who seeks or assists in obtaining an abortion, “only the plaintiff physician must comply with the challenged statutes, and only she can be punished for violating these regulations.” Therefore, the clinics as a whole cannot accuse the violation of rights, only the doctors themselves.
“Neither side in this case has presented a claim based on the individual right to abortion created by the amendment,” Yost’s office wrote.
Because the amendment was enacted to restore rights under Roe v. Wade’s national legalization of abortion, which was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision, rather than state abortion-related laws, “these laws remain valid under with the amendment – says the prosecutor general.
Responding to claims from clinics that the 24-hour waiting period creates a situation where “in practice, patients are often forced to wait significantly longer” due to physician availability, procedural requirements such as fasting for sedation and anesthesia, and even things like transportation barriers for patients, Yost said the delays are not a legal issue.
“But the fact that patients often wait longer than 24 hours is not due to the law, but rather to several factors beyond the state’s control,” Yost said in his motion.
The dissent further argued that the requirement to check a fetal heartbeat before an abortion “in no way prevents abortion, and indeed plaintiffs have long acknowledged that they have easily complied with this law over the years.”
Blocking enforcement of the laws at issue in the lawsuit “would cause irreparable harm to society,” Yost concluded. The public interest would also be at stake in the lawsuit “because the General Assembly is democratically elected to represent the public interest of the state as a whole.”
Abortion and the 2024 general election
The General Assembly elections and the race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Senator Sherrod Brown may become a referendum on Ohioans’ attitude towards abortion and the candidates’ position on this issue.
One of the legislators running for re-election in Ohio’s 45th House District, staunchly anti-abortion GOP state Republican Jennifer Gross, stated that “I don’t swear allegiance” to the reproductive rights amendment in Ohio’s constitution if re-elected. She too presented to the public that she believed Issue 1 was unconstitutional, and she helped draft the bill in the Legislature withdraw execution of issue 1 from the judiciary and transferred power to the legislative branch itself. That’s according to House Speaker Jason Stephens dismissed the objections to the draft actor even the likelihood that the bill will pass.
State Sen. Sandra O’Brien, R-Ashtabula, is also seeking re-election in the state’s 32nd Senate District. She presented a bill that would make this possible allow tax breaks for those who donate to “pregnancy help centers.””, centers that are often associated with anti-abortion entities are highly criticized and do not allow tax relief in the case of a donation to any center that provides abortion services or is associated with them.
The bill was submitted to the committee just a few weeks after the adoption of the abortion amendment and is currently in the Senate Finance Committee.
The most recent incumbent in state House District 41 Josh Williams, R-Sylvania, presented the bill which would prevent state funds from being transferred to “any entity that supports, promotes or provides abortion,” even threatening to withhold local government funds from municipalities that reimburse abortion services. It has been assigned to the Ohio House of Representatives Government Oversight Committee, but has not yet received a hearing.
A few days after the adoption of the constitutional amendment last yearThe Ohio Democratic Party has already been working to link anti-abortion views, which failed to sway a majority of Ohio voters on Issue 1, to the views of Brown’s November opponent, Bernie Moreno, and other candidates in the March primary.
In the following months, fundraising emails and press releases continued to highlight Moreno’s anti-abortion views and comments on Republicans’ nationwide 15-week abortion ban.
Even in Ohio, after the abortion amendment was passed, Senate President Matt Huffman considered the idea of a 15-week ban as a potential idea for the future.
Dr. Courtney Kerestes, an obstetrician/gynecologist practicing in Columbus and a member of Physicians for Reproductive Health, stated that 15. week has no “medical significance” as a landmark banning abortion, but sees it only as a talking point to strengthen supporters of abortion rights. The Mississippi case that became the Dobbs case, which resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, included a 15-week ban.
According to the most recent induced abortion report released by the Ohio Department of Health, only 10.4% of all abortions occurred between weeks 13 and 22 of pregnancy, and the extensive majority (67.4%) occurred before nine weeks.
But talk of banning abortion at any gestational age is causing confusion for Ohio patients, who also know there is an amendment that includes a provision stating that the decision about pregnancy and abortion is left to the patient and treating physician based on fetal viability.
Kerestes said that patients who “very much wanted to get pregnant” came to her with concerns that their pregnancy might have an anomaly in the fetus and that the decision about whether they would be able to influence the fate of the pregnancy could not depend on them. . The same cannot be said for people undergoing colonoscopy or those requiring cardiac care, she added.
“It’s important to think about all of these unfortunate complications that can arise from pregnancy,” Kerestes said. “I don’t want to sit and wonder if I need to see a lawyer before I provide care.”
Moreno did not respond to requests for comment from the Capital Journal, but he said earlier He would support a nationwide 15-week abortion ban and call himself “100% pro-life, no exceptions.”
On Twitter, called Roe v. Wade “a terrible decision made over 50 years ago that led to the destruction of millions of unborn lives.”
A statement released by Brown’s campaign said the incumbent U.S. senator “supports the overwhelming majority of Ohioans who voted last year to protect abortion rights under the Ohio Constitution.”
