Ohio Abortion Ban Ruled Unconstitutional by County Judge in Wake of Voter-Approved Referendum
CBS News, October 25, 2024
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, before many women know they’re pregnant – 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 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.
In 2024, Abortion Rights Initiatives are on the Ballot in 10 States
ABC News, October 28, 2024
In 2022, protecting abortion rights was a winning issue in the six states that saw ballot initiatives related to abortion: That year, voters in the red states of Kansas, Kentucky and Montana rejected measures that would have restricted or removed existing protections for abortion access in those states, while voters in California, Michigan and Vermont approved measures that enshrined access to abortion in their states’ constitutions. In 2023, Ohio joined them. Next week, 11 more abortion-related initiatives will be on voters’ ballots – nine of them focused on restoring the right to abortion in individual states, one rival measure in Nebraska that would prohibit that right and one in New York that would expand the state’s anti-discrimination laws to include reproductive health protections. It’s the largest and latest push after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended abortion politics in the summer of 2022 and left in place a patchwork of state-specific abortion protections and restrictions. Though they vary somewhat, most state initiatives this year are seeking to restore the protections that were in place before the Dobbs decision under Roe v. Wade – and updated under Planned Parenthood v. Casey – which guaranteed the right to abortion before the point of “fetal viability.” Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Nevada will all have measures on the ballot next week that would guarantee the right to abortion until the point of fetal viability – generally defined as the point at which most experts say a fetus could survive outside the womb, and often considered to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy: [M]easures in two states this year – Maryland and Colorado – include broader language that would protect access to abortion without mentioning fetal viability.
Anti-Abortion Groups Want Supreme Court To Get Rid Of Protest-Free Zones at Clinics
USA Today, October 28, 2024
Anti-abortion groups, as well as a number of Republican attorneys general, want the justices to use it to overturn a 2000 decision – Hill v. Colorado – that upheld protest restrictions around abortion clinics. Coalition Life, a Missouri group, says its members need to get close enough to women to make eye contact as they advocate against abortion. In Hill v. Colorado, the court ruled 6-3 that Colorado could prevent activists from coming within 8 feet of another person within a 100-foot zone surrounding a health care facility. The justices kept that decision intact in 2014 when it struck down a 35-foot protest-free zone outside abortion clinics in Massachusetts. An anti-abortion activist, represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, is contesting a 2014 ordinance in Englewood, New Jersey, that created a protest-free buffer zone around certain health care facilities. The buffer bars the public from coming within 8 feet of clinic entrances. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January that the restrictions were narrowly tailored, do not violate protesters’ First Amendment rights, and are less restrictive than what the Supreme Court sanctioned in 2000. But challengers will keep asking the Supreme Court to intervene, Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice told the court, until that 2000 decision has been overturned.
North Dakota Supreme Court Asked To Keep Overturned Abortion Ban in Place During State’s Appeal
Associated Press, October 25, 2024
Attorneys for the state of North Dakota have asked the state Supreme Court to let North Dakota’s overturned abortion ban remain in effect during the state’s appeal of a judge’s September ruling that found the law unconstitutional. Earlier in October, state District Judge Bruce Romanick denied the state’s request for a stay, saying: “The Court has found the law unconstitutional under the state constitution. It would be non-sensical for this Court to keep a law it has found to be unconstitutional in effect pending appeal.” Last week, the state asked the Supreme Court for a stay pending appeal, saying “this case presents serious, difficult, and unresolved constitutional questions that are of profound importance to the people of this State,” among other reasons, such as preserving the status quo.
Faced With Obstacles to Abortion, Military Women Have Built Their Own Support System
NPR, October 30, 2024
Seeking an abortion has always presented unique challenges for women in the military. For decades, a measure known as the Hyde amendment has banned federal funding for most abortions, and only allows military doctors to perform abortions in the case of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is at stake. But more than two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, striking down the constitutional right to abortion, the obstacles for members of the military have only gotten harder. Some 40% of women in the military now serve in states with abortion bans or expanded abortion restrictions. This new landscape has left many service members scrambling to navigate their options, having to figure out how to travel – sometimes hundreds of miles from base – even though they’re not free to leave whenever they want. The military has tried to make it easier by creating a policy that allows extra leave and paid travel for women seeking an abortion outside of the military, but the policy was used just 12 times from June to December last year, according to the Pentagon. Instead, women in the military are often relying on an ad-hoc peer support system that many compared to an “underground railroad” of military women helping one another, according to interviews with more than 40 current and former service members, advocates and researchers.
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Happy National Work & Family Month! Let’s pass family-friendly policies like #PaidLeave, close wage gaps and end occupational segregation, because an economy that works for all is one that also considers the supports women need to thrive. https://t.co/z1waotuUvR
– National Partnership (@NPWF) October 28, 2024
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