News
Featured Image

Pro-life leaders say a federal judge must recuse himself from hearing a legal challenge to a case that could make Cincinnati abortion-free, because he once served as president of the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black has been chosen to hear Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. Hodges – a lawsuit seeking to invalidate an Ohio law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of their office. The law, signed by Gov. John Kasich, also forbade public hospitals from providing admitting privileges to abortion providers.

Since most private hospitals in the area are Catholic and decline to offer such privileges to abortionists due to their faith, the Elizabeth Campbell Surgical Center is facing closure.

Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region sued Ohio on Monday, arguing that the law would make Cincinnati abortion-free.

But in a 2010 questionnaire filed with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Black revealed that he was director of the Planned Parenthood Association of Cincinnati for three years (1986-1989) and its president in 1988.

“It is a conflict of interest for a former Planned Parenthood of Cincinnati director and president to judge a case involving the same organization he has ties with,” said Paula Westwood, executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. “A judge is required who can make an objective decision according to the rule of law.”

Planned Parenthood is asking its former officer to declare the law unconstitutional, allowing Planned Parenthood to resume its relationship with the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and remain open for business. Otherwise, Cincinnati will become the largest metropolitan area in the United States without an abortion facility.

Judge Black has not yet stated whether he will hear the case.

In 2011, he allowed former Democratic Congressman Steve Driehaus to sue the Susan B. Anthony List for saying his vote for ObamaCare supported “taxpayer-funded abortion.” Black reversed himself in January 2013, tossing the lawsuit and saying that he “could not see the forest for the trees.”

Click “like” if you are PRO-LIFE!

Judge Black is no stranger to controversy since being named to the bench by President Obama in 2010. Last July, Black ordered the state of Ohio to recognize same-sex “marriages” contracted in other states, a decision that was overruled by a panel of judges from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.