By Dave Andrusko
Wasting no time, on Wednesday abortion providers attacked the state’s Heartbeat Law which bans abortions once the baby’s heartbeat can be detected, at approximately six weeks.
Preterm-Cleveland, Planned Parenthood Greater Ohio and other abortion providers filed the lawsuit “asking the Ohio Supreme Court to order state officials not to enforce the 2019 heartbeat law and to declare it unconstitutional,” Laura Hancock reported. “They also asked for an emergency stay, or a temporary block on the law while the case is litigated.”
Later yesterday morning, the state’s highest court “ordered the respondents to file a response by noon Thursday about whether the court should grant an emergency stay,” according to Hancock.
“Races don’t start at the finish line, and lawsuits don’t start in the final court,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost responded to the ACLU lawsuit. “Aside from filing the wrong action in the wrong court, they are wrong as well on Ohio law. Abortion is not in the Ohio Constitution.”
Literally minutes after Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost began the process that culminated eight hours later when U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio Judge Michael R. Barrett dissolved the three year old hold on Ohio’s Heartbeat Law. “Because there exists no just reason for delay, [the state] respectfully request this Court immediately dissolve the preliminary injunction and dismiss this case,” Yost’s attorneys wrote in the filing. “Indeed, the State of Ohio will be irreparably harmed by any delay whatsoever.”
Ohio pro-life Gov. Mike DeWine then issued an executive order directing the Ohio Department of Health to adopt emergency rules to implement the Heartbeat law which ban abortions after a baby’s heartbeat can be detected.
The lawsuit looks to the Ohio Constitution’s due process rights under the Due Course of Law Clause which, Hancock writes, “protects women’s reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity. The heartbeat law discriminates against women, in violation of the Equal Protection
“The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are trying to create an abortion mandate in the Ohio Constitution out of thin air,” said CCV President Aaron Baer. “To suggest our state Constitution requires that abortion clinics are able to destroy unborn life is foolish and dangerous.”
Baer noted that “Over the last 20 years, no serious legal scholar—even pro-abortion legal scholars—have attempted to claim that abortion is mandated under the state Constitution. The truth is, the abortion industry has lost the debate amongst the voters, now they’re hoping for a bailout from the State Supreme Court. The Court must swiftly reject this case.”