Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, 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 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. Jenkins said his ruling upholds voters' wishes.
Yost's office said it was reviewing the order and would decide within 30 days whether to appeal.
“This is a very long, complicated decision covering many issues, many of which are issues of first impression,” the office said in a statement, meaning they have not been decided by a court before.