The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is appealing a Hamilton County judge’s order blocking the state’s six-week abortion ban indefinitely as the case over it proceeds.
In a news release, Yost’s office said they filed the notice of appeal after consulting with the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
The release said the brief arguing its appeal would be filed after the trial court record is filed, as per Ohio law. As of Thursday afternoon, the brief was not available online from the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts.
In an Oct. 7 order, Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins said that abortion is health care to which Ohioans have a right.
Jenkins pointed to affidavits that had been submitted to the court by the ACLU and abortion clinics, telling stories of pregnancies that were not viable or caused patients to forgo cancer treatment, but were forced to continue because they were past the six-week gestation mark.
He said Ohio’s constitution does not allow women to be subject to such regulations, and gives no preference to any religion of specific ideological group under “rights of conscience.”
“Ohio’s constitution specifically and unambiguously recognized as fundamental the right to liberty … and the right to seek and obtain safety,” Jenkins said.
Before issuing the indefinite injunction against the ban, Jenkins had previously issued two temporary injunctions of two weeks each.
In arguing against the injunctions, Yost’s office claimed the abortion ban had become the status quo in Ohio after it was implemented at Yost’s request following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning national abortion rights.
The Attorney General’s Office pointed to the case not being filed in the Hamilton County for two months after the law was implemented.
The two-month waiting period came as the Ohio Supreme Court had not yet moved forward on a lawsuit the clinics had filed in its court, but had denied an emergency stay of the ban.
Because of the delay, and harm the litigants said Ohioans were suffering, they asked the state supreme court to dismiss the lawsuit, so it could be moved to the current venue in southwest Ohio. The dismissal was granted.
Ohio’s abortion ban, Senate Bill 23, was passed in 2019 by the state legislature and signed into law by DeWine, but had been blocked by courts until the U.S. Supreme Court decision June 24.
