By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) – An Ohio judge permanently struck down the state’s abortion ban on Thursday after about six weeks, criticizing the Republican attorney general for his efforts to circumvent the will of Ohioans who voted to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution.
Judge Christian Jenkins of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati said the Republican-backed 2019 state law would hinder women’s ability to obtain abortions and discourage doctors from performing them, contrary to a constitutional amendment passed last year was approved by the voters.
The office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, acknowledged that the ban itself could not stand in light of the ballot initiative, but had argued that 14 other provisions of state law should be upheld.
Those include requirements to have doctors check fetal heart rates before performing an abortion, inform patients seeking abortions when their fetuses are viable, and have patients wait 24 hours after visiting a doctor before having an abortion.
Jenkins said these provisions were unconstitutional because the broad language of the ballot measure prohibits any tax on the ability to exercise the right to abortion.
He noted that when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overruled the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent, which had guaranteed abortion rights nationwide, it said it was returning the issue of abortion to individual states and that “women should not be left without electoral or political power.”
“The Ohio attorney general apparently did not get the memo,” wrote Jenkins, a Democrat who was elected to his post in 2021. “Unlike the Ohio Attorney General, this court will uphold the protection of abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution.”
Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for Yost, said the attorney general has 30 days to review the “very long, complicated decision” and decide whether to appeal.
The lead plaintiff in the case, Preterm-Cleveland, a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lauren Blauvelt, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, said the decision highlights the importance of securing abortion rights through a ballot initiative.
“Ohioans are reassured that they have crucial protection from anti-abortion lawmakers through our courts,” Blauvelt said in a statement.
The 2019 law banned abortion once a fetus’s heartbeat was detected, usually around six weeks, and that’s before many women know they are pregnant. Exceptions were included for the prevention of death or serious injury to the mother, but not for rape or incest.
The Ohio Supreme Court let the law take effect in July 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade. Ohio’s law drew national attention later that month when a 10-year-old rape victim was forced to travel to Indiana to have an abortion.
After Preterm-Cleveland and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit to strike down the law, Jenkins blocked it in September 2022 pending the outcome of the case.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Bill Berkrot)
