More than nine months after Ohioans voted to protect abortion access, the first abortion restrictions are starting to fall.
Two judges have cited Ohio’s new reproductive rights amendment as the reason they struck down hurdles to patients accessing abortion. “The amendment grants sweeping protections ensuring reproductive autonomy for patients in Ohio,” Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Alison Hatheway wrote.
Voters supported Issue 1 in the November 2023 election, 57% to 43%.
Here’s what’s happened so far:
An Aug. 23 decision from Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge David Young allows Ohio abortion clinics to provide same-day abortions. Young, a Democrat, temporarily blocked an Ohio law that requires pregnant patients to wait at least 24 hours before obtaining an abortion. He also put on hold a law that required abortion providers to offer literature about alternatives to abortion.An Aug. 29 decision from Hatheway allows Ohio abortion clinics to offer medication abortions up until 11 weeks instead of the current 10 and expands who can provide medication abortions.Hatheway, a Democrat, temporarily blocked an Ohio law that prevents advanced practice clinicians − such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives − from providing medication abortion. She also put on hold a law that limits when mifepristone, one-half of a widely-used two-drug abortion regimen, can be used. In 2021, Hatheway blocked a ban on using telemedicine for medication abortions. The new decisions make it easier for abortion providers to meet with patients virtually and distribute abortion medication without an in-person visit.
In both cases, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office argued that Ohio voters didn’t intend to roll back these abortion restrictions. Voters instead wanted to return Ohio to the level of abortion access it had before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and an Ohio law restricting access to most abortions took effect.
These two local judges disagreed, but they likely won’t have the final word. The Ohio Supreme Court, composed of four Republican justices and three Democratic ones, is expected to review appealed challenges to state abortion laws.
Which abortion access cases are still up in the air?
For abortion rights advocates, it’s two decisions down, and many to go.
Attorneys for Ohio’s abortion providers are waiting on a decision from Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Christian Jenkins, who put Ohio’s ban on most abortions on hold in September 2022. That law bans doctors from performing abortions after embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which is about six weeks into pregnancy.
While the law was in effect, it dramatically reduced the number of abortions performed in Ohio and sent patients to neighboring states for treatment. In one nationally covered case, a young girl who had been raped obtained an abortion in Indiana.
But Jenkins concluded that the Ohio Constitution ensured “a fundamental right to abortion.” That was months before voters explicitly put abortion protections in the state Constitution. Now, attorneys representing Ohio’s abortion clinics feel even more confident this law will be invalidated; they are waiting for the official decision.
Abortion rights advocates are also waiting to see what happens with legal challenges to these laws:
A requirement that abortion clinics have written agreements with local, private hospitals to treat patients in case of an emergency. If a hospital doesn’t agree, the abortion provider can instead partner with several local doctors for a variance. But state lawmakers also put restrictions on which doctors can participate. The restrictions on who these doctors can be are currently blocked, but written transfer agreements are still required.A requirement that embryonic or fetal tissue from surgical abortions be cremated or buried. This law is currently on hold.What isn’t being challenged in court?
Ohio abortion providers have not challenged a requirement that minors receive parental consent for abortions − even though that issue got a lot of attention during the 2023 campaign.
They also haven’t challenged Ohio’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, a law former Gov. John Kasich signed in 2016.
Yost’s office, in a legal analysis published before last year’s vote, wrote that both laws could be invalidated if they were challenged. The campaign said their amendment didn’t mention and wasn’t about restricting parental consent.
Why are there so many lawsuits over abortion access?
Ohio’s GOP-controlled Legislature won’t repeal laws restricting access to abortion. And Democratic proposals to remove abortion restrictions from the books have gone nowhere.
So, attorneys representing abortion clinics have sued to enforce the voter-approved reproductive rights amendment.
That was a lot of information. When is it legal to obtain an abortion in Ohio?
As of Sept. 1, it is legal for patients who are 21 weeks and six days pregnant or less to obtain an abortion in Ohio.
Beyond that point, abortions are legal to save a pregnant patient’s life or to prevent a serious risk to the patient’s physical health.
Patients do not need to attend a counseling session or wait for a designated period to obtain an abortion in Ohio.
In 2022, 18,488 abortions were performed in Ohio, according to the most recent Ohio Department of Health report. That number was lower because of the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, but abortions have generally been on the decline in Ohio for years.
Jessie Balmert covers state government and politics for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
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Publish date : 2024-09-05 15:00:00
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