December 12, 2024
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down on Thursday by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.
Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.
Jenkins said that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned power over the abortion issue to the states, “Ohio’s Attorney General evidently didn’t get the memo.”
The judge said Republican Attorney General Dave Yost's request to leave all but one provision of the law untouched even after a majority of Ohio’s voters passed an amendment protecting the right to pre-viability abortion “dispels the myth" that the high court's decision simply gives states power over the issue.
“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 wrote. Jenkins said his ruling upholds voters' wishes.
Yost's office said it was reviewing the order and would decide within 30 days whether to appeal.
“This is a very long, complicated decision covering many issues, many of which are issues of first impression,” the office said in a statement, meaning they have not been decided by a court before.
An initial lawsuit was brought in federal court in 2019, where the law was first blocked under the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. It was briefly allowed to go into effect in 2022 after Roe was overturned. Opponents of the law then turned to the state court system, where the ban was again put on hold. They argued the law violated protections in Ohio’s constitution that guarantee individual liberty and equal protection, and that it was unconstitutionally vague.
After his predecessor twice vetoed the measure citing Roe, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the 2019 law.
