With a up-to-date law cutting Medicaid funding for some clinics, Planned Parenthood estimates that 200 of its clinics in 24 states are at risk of closing as a result of the cuts, and almost all of those clinics – 90% – are in states where abortion is legal. (Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
As Ohio’s current General Assembly enters its second year in 2026, abortion will remain a subject of legislation, with compact efforts to change the law and immense efforts to codify or ban the practice.
Republicans and Democrats have clearly drawn their boundaries when it comes to where they want the country to go on reproductive rights, but GOP majority certainly has an advantage when it comes to getting bills heard on their side of the aisle.
A 2023 constitutional amendment passed with 57% of the vote to include reproductive rights, including abortion, in Ohio’s constitution, but Republican lawmakers are looking for ways around the issue.
While Democrats introduced Ohio House Bill 128 in February, to further reject the amendment, including attempting to repeal laws that disagree with it, Republicans introduced Ohio House Bill 370which was dubbed another “personhood bill” for attempting to apply 14th Amendment rights to “unborn persons” and repealing any state law that “would otherwise allow a person to direct, advise, encourage, or induce the mother to have an abortion.”
The bill emphasizes an overarching provision of the U.S. Constitution that takes precedence over anything the Ohio Constitution “contradicts” it, according to the bill’s language.
The Democrats’ bill does the opposite, aiming to repeal “our state’s archaic laws that do not improve outcomes or access to care,” as the bill’s co-author, Rep. Anita Somani, D-Dublin, put it when the bill was first drafted.
While neither bill has seen action since being assigned to their committees, this up-to-date year will likely be more genial to the GOP bill due to the majority party advantage previous attempts at “personality bills” have not fared well, and abortion advocates say they are unpopular across the country.
Somani already introduced a similar bill as part of an effort this year to try to repeal anti-abortion provisions in state law, but the bill died at the end of the last General Assembly after only one hearing.
A Dublin representative who is also an OB/GYN continues to try to further change the language in state law with another bill, Ohio House Bill 245.
The bill seeks to amend the rules of the Ohio Parenting and Pregnancy Program, which provides grants to entities that lend a hand provide pregnancy and parenting education services. The program currently states that grant recipients must “promote childbirth rather than abortion through counseling and other services, including parenting and adoption support.”
The up-to-date bill would remove that language, along with a legal provision that excludes entities from receiving grants if they are “engaged in or associated with abortion activities, including providing abortion counseling or referrals to abortion clinics, performing abortion-related medical procedures, or engaging in pro-abortion advertising.”
The bill removes anti-abortion language and adds text that includes abortion as part of the counseling options for people attending grant-funded facilities.
The up-to-date law would also allow for the provision of information on contraception, reproductive health care and sexual education.
The Ohio House of Representatives’ Children and Human Services Committee received the bill in April but did not hold a hearing on it.
Abortion directly and indirectly
The General Assembly is considering other bills that directly and indirectly address abortion care.
Before even considering abortion, some facilities will have to determine whether they can afford to continue as the bill seeks to strip state Medicaid funds in the same way as federal efforts in the latest budget bill.
Ohio House Bill 410 he has had three hearings with the House Medicaid Committee since being sent there in September.
It cites language in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in an attempt to prohibit federal funds from going to nonprofits that received more than $800,000 in federal and state Medicaid payments in 2023.
Cuts to the federal Medicaid program have already been cited as a reason for Ohio’s Planned Parenthood clinic closures and staffing cuts this year.
Many of the bills currently before committees in the Statehouse concern informed consent, requiring patients to receive state-required documents regarding specific risks associated with abortion procedures, and potential civil actions that could be taken against suppliers and facilities.
Ohio Senate Bill 309 was heard once by the Senate Health Committee in October. This bill would require doctors to provide patients with a written statement regarding the risks of abortion services, except in medical emergencies.
It also states that patients and their families can sue doctors, health care facilities or others if complications occur that were not disclosed before the procedure.
Ohio House Bill 347referred to the House Health Committee in June, also held one hearing on allowing “elective abortion” only after a doctor met with the pregnant woman at least 24 hours before the abortion to “provide specific information and document the woman’s informed consent.”
This may cause the Act to conflict with an ongoing court case repealed the previous provision in state law requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion procedure.
A judge in Franklin County blocked the provision in August 2024, citing a constitutional amendment regarding reproductive rights in his decision. The case will last at least spring before a final decision is made.
The Ohio House bill also provides for civil liability against a physician who violates the bill, with liability lasting up to one year after the abortion procedure or one year after “reasonable discovery of harm,” according to the bill.
The measure also allows the State Medical Board “to adopt rules specifying adverse physical or mental conditions resulting from abortion that a physician must disclose as possible complications.”
The State Medical Commission it currently includes Michael Gonidakis, a former leader of the anti-abortion lobby Ohio Right to Life, who is still affiliated with the organization.
This is what obstetricians/gynecologists and abortion advocates say patients are already informed risks associated with abortion before performing the procedure as part of medical training and policies applicable to health care workers. Studies show that grave complications are statistically sporadic.
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