The Ohio abortion ban has been deemed unconstitutional following a referendum approved by voters

By Oliver

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The Ohio abortion ban has been deemed unconstitutional following a referendum approved by voters

Columbus, Ohio The strictest of Ohio’s abortion laws was thrown out by a county judge on Thursday. The judge said that the so-called “heartbeat law” is not constitutional because of the voter-approved amendment last year that protects reproductive rights.

A 2019 law that says most abortions are illegal once cardiac activity is detected—which can happen as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before most women even know they’re pregnant—had been put on hold while the judge in Hamilton County, Ohio, heard the challenge.

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But Jenkins said that “Ohio’s Attorney General clearly didn’t get the memo” when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and gave the states back control over abortion laws.

The judge said that Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request to keep all but one part of the law the same, even though most Ohio voters passed an amendment protecting the right to an abortion before birth “dispels the myth” that the high court’s decision only gives states control over the issue.

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“Despite the adoption of a broad and strongly worded constitutional amendment, in this case and others, the State of Ohio seeks not to uphold the Constitutional protection of abortion rights, but to diminish and limit it,” he said. Jenkins said that his decision respects what the voters wanted.

Yost’s office said it would look over the order and decide within 30 days if it would file an appeal.

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The office said in a statement, “This is a very long and complicated decision that covers many issues, many of which are issues of first impression,” which means that the court has never made a decision on them before.

In response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the law firm WilmerHale on behalf of a group of abortion providers in the state, Jenkins made his decision. This is the second lawsuit to challenge the law.

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In a statement, Jessie Hill, a cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said, “This is a landmark decision that shows how powerful Ohio’s new Reproductive Freedom Amendment really is.” “The six-week ban is blatantly unconstitutional and has no place in our law.”

In 2019, the first lawsuit against the law was filed in federal court. This is where it was first blocked by the famous Roe v. Wade decision from 1973. It went into effect for a short time in 2022, after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

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The people who were against the law then went to the state courts, where the ban was put on hold again. Their argument was that the law was too vague and violated Ohio’s constitutional protections for individual freedom and equal protection.

After his predecessor twice vetoed the bill citing Roe, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the 2019 law after Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court strengthened the conservative majority and gave people who are against abortion hope.

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The Ohio lawsuit happened at the same time as a national upheaval over abortion rights after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. This upheaval included efforts to change the Constitution in Ohio and many other states. Issue 1, which was passed by voters in Ohio last year, says that everyone in the state has “the right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”

In court documents from this spring, Yost admitted that the change made the Ohio ban unconstitutional, but he fought to keep some parts of the 2019 law, like the parts about notification and reporting.

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Jenkins said that keeping those parts would have meant that doctors who perform abortions would have been facing felony charges, fines, license suspensions or revocations, and civil claims of wrongful death.

Patients would have had to go to their provider twice in person, wait 24 hours for the procedure, and have their abortion recorded and reported.

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