County judge strikes down Ohio abortion ban, citing voter-approved reproductive rights amendment
LA TimesSupporters attend a rally for the Right to Reproductive Freedom amendment at the Ohio State House in Columbus last year. The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion has been struck down by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional. Jenkins said Thursday that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. 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 Atty. Gen. 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. Issue 1, the amendment Ohio voters passed last year, gives every person in Ohio “the right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” Yost acknowledged in court filings this spring that the amendment rendered the Ohio ban unconstitutional, but sought to maintain other elements of the 2019 law, including certain notification and reporting provisions.