Blitz Bureau
COLUMBUS: The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional, reported Associated Press.
Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.
Jenkins said when the US 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.
“This is a very long, complicated decision covering many issues, many of which are issues of first impression,” the office said.
Jenkins’ decision comes in a lawsuit that the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the law firm WilmerHale brought on behalf of a group of abortion providers in the state.
