HAMILTON COUNTY, Ohio (LifeSiteNews) – The attorneys general of 18 states have declared their support for an Ohio law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, urging a judge to reverse a temporary block on its enforcement.
The 2018 law bans abortions starting around six weeks for any reason except to prevent death or “irreversible damage” to the mother. Without it, abortion is legal up to 20 weeks in the Buckeye State.
It took effect soon after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, but was hit with a temporary injunction by another judge, which has since been appealed to the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court. The Ohio Supreme Court will also be reviewing the order.
The Daily Caller reports that the top law enforcement officials of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia have now filed an amicus brief in Hamilton County supporting the pro-life law.
“Amici’s experience extends to one of the issues now before this Court: whether abortion providers have third-party standing to vindicate a right to abortion,” the attorneys general led by Lynn Fitch of Mississippi argue. “The U.S. Supreme Court long accorded abortion providers such standing. That was a mistake. It departed from sound principles of standing, damaged the law, and hurt the Court.”
“The Court should hold that the abortion-provider plaintiffs lack third-party standing to challenge the Heartbeat Act,” the group says.
Fourteen states currently ban all or most abortions, thanks to the reversal of Roe putting abortion back in the hands of the democratic process.
To preserve abortion “access” in this new landscape, the abortion lobby and its allies are pursuing multiple strategies, including easing distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, attempting to enshrine “rights” to the practice in state constitutions, attempting to construct new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, and making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has called on Congress to codify a “right” to abortion in federal law, which would not only restore but expand the Roe status quo by making it illegal for states to pass virtually any pro-life laws. Democrats currently lack the votes to do so, but whether they get those votes is sure to be one of the major issues of the 2024 elections.
In Ohio, the abortion lobby and its allies are currently promoting a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would establish a “right” to make “personal reproductive” decisions “including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care, and abortion,” which the state “shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against.” Critics say the amendment would not only enshrine effectively-unlimited abortion on demand, but also destroy parental involvement in controversial youth procedures such as “gender transition.”