COLUMBUS, Ohio—
Ohio’s most sweeping laws restricting abortion were struck down by a county judge who said an amendment approved by voters last year establishing reproductive rights made the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.
Enforcement of a 2019 law that bans most abortions after cardiac activity is detected (as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant) has been suspended pending a summons to the Hamilton Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.
Jenkins said Thursday that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion power to the states, “Ohio’s attorney general apparently didn’t get the memo.”
The judge said Republican prosecutor. Gen. Dave Yost’s request not to affect all but one provision of the law, even after a majority of Ohio voters approved a pre-viability abortion rights amendment “dispels the myth” that the decision of the Supreme Court gives only the states the power to do so. .
“Despite adopting a broad and powerful constitutional amendment, in this case and others, the state of Ohio seeks not to uphold constitutional protections for the right to abortion, but to diminish and limit them,” he wrote. Jenkins said his ruling upholds voters’ wishes.
Yost’s office said it is reviewing the order and will decide within 30 days whether to appeal.
“This is a very lengthy and complex decision involving many issues, many of which are matters of first impression,” the office said in a statement, the significance of which has not previously been addressed by the court.
Jenkins’ decision comes in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Ohio, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the law firm WilmerHale on behalf of a group of abortion providers in the state, and a second round of litigation to challenge the law.
“This is an important ruling that demonstrates the power of Ohio’s new reproductive freedom reforms in action,” Jesse Hill, associate attorney with the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. “A six-week ban is completely unconstitutional and has no place in our legislation.”
The first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2019, where the law was first struck down under the landmark Roe v. Wade of 1973. Briefly allowed to go into effect in 2022, after Roe was overturned. Opponents of the law then appealed to the state court system, where the ban was reinstated. They argued that the law violates protections of the Ohio constitution that guarantee individual liberty and equal protection and that it is unconstitutionally vague.
After his predecessor twice vetoed the measure, citing Roe, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the 2019 law, while then-President Trump’s appointments strengthened the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and among opponents of the abortion generated hope.
The Ohio lawsuit, along with a national abortion rights outcry that followed the Dobbs decision overturning Roe, prompted constitutional amendments in Ohio and several other states, among others. Issue 1, an amendment approved by Ohio voters last year, gives every person in Ohio “the right to make and exercise their own reproductive decisions.”
Yost acknowledged in court filings this spring that the amendment made Ohio’s ban unconstitutional, but sought to preserve other elements of the 2019 law, including certain notification and reporting provisions.
Jenkins said keeping those elements would mean exposing doctors who perform abortions to criminal charges, fines, license suspensions or revocations and civil wrongful death lawsuits and requiring patients to make two in-person visits to their provider, with a waiting of 24 hours. record and report the abortion procedure.
Smith escribe para Associated Press.
