Last November, Ohioans voted on a radical amendment that would enshrine a right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Despite the fact that the amendment, written in an intentionally vague manner, threatened virtually all of the state’s existing regulations on abortion (such as its heartbeat law, a 24-hour waiting period, and parental-notification and -consent laws) and would pave the way for abortion until birth and taxpayer-funded abortion, Ohioans approved it.
The state is just beginning to see the consequences of that vote. In a recent court filing, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost agreed that the state’s heartbeat law, which banned abortions after six weeks, was incompatible with the new constitutional amendment. That was the argument of abortion clinics to a Hamilton County judge. Yost is, however, seeking to retain some aspects of the law, including requirements that doctors check for infants’ heartbeat and record patients’ motivations for an abortion.
Yost’s effort to preserve what regulations of abortion can coexist with the state’s newly amended constitution is commendable. But by belittling Yost’s actions as “quibbling about extraneous matters,” ACLU Ohio legal director Freda Levenson showed the difficulties the pro-life cause now faces in the state. Pro-abortion forces now have momentum and are likely to push for more changes in their favor in Ohio. As I wrote in November, arresting that momentum is “essentially a reactive task” and “will be difficult in itself, to say nothing of the proactive task of further advancing a culture of life.” In Ohio, as elsewhere, pro-lifers have serious work ahead of us.