Two Ohio laws restricting access to abortion pills have been struck down by the courts as part of the legal fallout that anti-abortion advocates feared would happen following the passage of a 2023 constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to abortion.
Hamilton County Common Judge Alison Hatheway issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 29 extending an existing order to halt the enforcement of a state law prohibiting the use of telemedicine to prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol for medication abortions.
The ruling also thwarts the state law blocking non-doctors, including midwives, advanced practice nurses, and physician assistants, from prescribing mifepristone for a medication abortion.
Abortion rights groups reacted to the order late Wednesday. The ACLU, PPFA, and Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio said in a statement that they were “relieved by the court’s decision” to overturn the rules restricting access to mifepristone and misoprostol.
“The more options people have — such as having more providers to choose from, and being able to access medication abortion later in their pregnancies — the more empowered they are to make the decisions that are best for them,” said the abortion advocates.
The suit against these two laws and several others regulating abortion in the Buckeye State was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood Federation of America shortly after the Reproductive Freedom Amendment took effect in the Ohio Constitution in December 2023.
The amendment, which passed with 57% of the vote, prohibits the state from acting “directly or indirectly [to] burden, penalize or interfere with or discriminate against” a citizen’s reproductive choices, allowing abortion until fetal viability.
Hatheway wrote in her opinion that the amendment “grants sweeping protections ensuring reproductive autonomy for patients in Ohio.”
“Plaintiffs have provided substantial evidence to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the Bans at issue here violate these newly enshrined rights in a manner that is not the least restrictive and actually causes harm to Plaintiffs’ patients,” wrote Hatheway.
In July, a Columbus area judge blocked a state law creating a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion, also arguing that the restriction is unconstitutional under the new amendment.
Anti-abortion advocates campaigned against the amendment last year by arguing that enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution would nullify common-sense protections on the procedure.
Such protections include Ohio’s parental consent requirement for minors to obtain an abortion as well as safety regulations for abortion clinics, such as distance away from emergency medicine facilities.
“How is abortion ‘a decision between a woman and her doctor’ when Planned Parenthood is pushing ballot measures and suing the state of Ohio to completely remove physicians from the process?” Kelsey Pritchard, State Public Affairs director for the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Washington Examiner.
Pritchard said the full effect of Ohio’s abortion amendment is “coming to light as unborn children and their mothers pay the price.”
“Telemedicine and the removal of doctors put more women at risk of suffering serious, even life-threatening, complications from abortion drugs,” said Pritchard. “According to the [Food and Drug Administration]’s own label, 1 in 25 women will go to the ER after taking mifepristone, and the drug should not be taken by women who have an ectopic pregnancy.”
Any appeals to orders deregulating mifepristone or the removal of the 24-hour waiting period could eventually arrive at the Ohio Supreme Court, where three seats are in play for the 2024 election.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Similar abortion rights ballot measures are on the ballot in 10 other states, several of which have gestational age limits for abortion.
“People in Florida, Arizona, South Dakota, and all of the states that could potentially have abortion on the ballot this November need to understand this is what the abortion lobby has in store,” said Pritchard. “These abortion amendments are so much more extreme than how they are described by the legacy media and in the ads funded by George Soros.”
