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Tag: abortion clinics

Judge holds off on Ohio abortion ban decision

BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal

A Hamilton County judge said he needs more time to decide whether or not to put a pause on a six-week abortion ban in Ohio.

Judge Christian Jenkins said in a Thursday hearing that he would not issue an opinion because the court still has questions about how the case moves forward.

“The court would like to investigate the threshold issue of jurisdiction and the effect of the (state) supreme court still not having dismissed the case,” Jenkins said on Thursday.

Abortion clinics moved the case from the Ohio Supreme Court to the Hamilton County Common Pleas Court because, as they said in court documents, waiting for the state’s highest court to make a decision was allowing “irreparable harm to the clinics and the patients” throughout the state.

Representatives for the state argued that the jurisdiction remains with the Ohio Supreme Court, since no dismissal order has been issued.

Temporary restraining orders on laws typically work to stop a law from taking effect, leaving previous standards in place. In this case, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood want to bring back the previous law that banned abortion beyond 22 weeks gestation.

Attorneys for the state countered the request for a temporary restraining order, saying the six-week abortion ban has been effective law for two months, making it the “status quo” in the state.

Law challengers are hoping for a quicker resolution in the lower court, starting with Thursday’s hearing on abortion supporters’ request for a temporary restraining order to be put on Senate Bill 23, the 2019 law that banned abortion in Ohio after six weeks gestation.

“Every day that SB 23 remains in effect, more and more pregnant women are forced either to attempt to travel hundreds of miles out of state to access care, or to continue pregnancies against their will, or to attempt to self-induce abortion outside the medical system, all at risk to the physical, mental and emotional wellbeing,” said Jessie Hill, lead counsel for the ACLU of Ohio, told the judge.

The clinics are not only challenging the law as a violation of the right to abortion, but also as an equal protection violation, based on the fact that the law only applies to those who can become pregnant.

The law had been tied up in courts since it was passed by the General Assembly in 2019, and signed by Gov. Mike DeWine. But the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson this year, overturning the 1970s decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion nationwide, opened the door for the state to implement the law. At the request of state Attorney General Dave Yost, a federal court dissolved the injunction keeping the state law from being enforced just hours after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Doctors, medical students, abortion rights advocates, religious leaders and even some of Ohio’s major cities have spoken out about the dangers they say could come from the near-total abortion ban, including unintended consequences that may impact Ohioans in the middle of wanted pregnancies.

Jenkins said a decision on the temporary restraining order would be released “as quickly as the court is able.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Susan Tebben on Twitter.

Sep 9, 2022
Ohio Supreme Court denies attempt to stop abortion ban

BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal

Protesters gathered at the statehouse to voice opposition to the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. (photo by Nick Evans)

The Ohio Supreme Court has denied an attempt by abortion clinics to stop a six-week abortion ban from being enforced.

In a Friday ruling, the court denied a motion for an emergency stay of Senate Bill 23, legislation signed into law in 2019 that banned abortion up to six-weeks gestation.

The lawsuit is still ongoing, but denial of the emergency stay means abortion clinics won’t be able to conduct abortions past six weeks as the case continues. The announcement did not indicate whether the denial was unanimous.

The court asked for responses by Thursday to the lawsuit’s request to stay the law, and received briefs from state officials, prosecutors and academics.

In a “friend of the court brief” filed Thursday, professors of public health, sociology, epidemiology and public affairs from The Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati joined with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood in pushing for an end to Senate Bill 23, which was implemented on Friday, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Instead of reflecting the Ohioan majority view that supports abortion rights, SB 23 caters to the minority fraction of Ohioans that are unsupportive of these rights,” the brief states.

The researchers cite polling data on support of abortion rights from three different universities: Suffolk University, Baldwin Wallace University and Quinnipiac University. All of the surveys found a majority of survey-takers supported abortion rights, and the professors argued that the polls proved that public opinion is on the side of abortion rights.

“While abortion attitudes arise out of complex combination of interlocking feelings toward gender, religion, politics, morality, science and many other facets, SB 23 allows from none of this nuance,” the professors wrote.

Prosecutors from Cuyahoga County and Franklin County aren’t going to stand in the way of the lawsuit. Both Michael O’Malley and Gary Tyack filed documents with the court saying they “do not oppose” granting an emergency stay of the law.

O’Malley previously signed on to a letter with other national prosecutors and attorneys pledging not to enforce abortion bans following the Supreme Court decision.

Attorney General Dave Yost also responded to the lawsuit, calling the request for emergency stay of the law “substantively and procedurally flawed,” citing the Roe v. Wade ruling last week in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org.

“With this holding, the court extricated itself from having to repeatedly decide policy matters that the Constitution leaves to the states and the political branches,” Yost wrote.

Any contention that Ohio’s constitution holds the right to abortion is “indefensible,” the attorney general stated, “no matter the theory of constitutional interpretation one might embrace.”

Follow OCJ Reporter Susan Tebben on Twitter.

Jul 3, 2022
Ohio clinics sue to bar new abortion bill

Protesters of a bill to promote a total abortion ban with the overturning of Roe v. Wade demonstrate outside the Ohio Statehouse in September. Photo by Susan Tebben

BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Oho Capital Journal

A lawsuit has been filed against the newest state abortion restriction and its regulation of doctors’ ability to practice medicine.

The ACLU, Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region and Women’s Med Dayton are asking a Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to keep the state from enforcing a law to create “onerous and unwarranted” restrictions to health care in Southwest Ohio in particular.

The Ohio General Assembly passed Senate Bill 157 in December, and the law is set to be effective March 23, if the court doesn’t fulfill the lawsuit’s request.

If the law goes into effect, doctors who work with state public universities or medical centers will not be allowed to also be affiliated with abortion clinics in the state.

Abortion clinics that conduct surgical abortions are considered “ambulatory surgical facilities,” also the name of other outpatient facilities where procedures can be done.

Clinics who conduct abortions are required to have a “written transfer agreement” with a local hospital to which a patient can be transferred should medical care “beyond the care that can be provided at the ambulatory surgical facility” is needed.

Those hospitals need to be within 30 miles of the facility.

To obtain a variance to the written transfer agreements, doctors are required to have hospital admitting privileges within those 30 miles. But these variance agreements could be made more complicated by this new law, originally pushed by bill sponsors as a way for the Ohio Department of Health to track so-called “failed abortions,” which the state already defines as abortion procedures in which the child is alive when removed from the pregnant person’s body.

So-called “failed abortions” are rare, and state data shows none of the abortions conducted after 19 weeks – still not considered a gestation period when a baby would survive outside of the womb – were on viable pregnancies.

In the new lawsuit, doctors argue not only would the law create constitutional conflicts by singling out abortion providers, but it would also keep physicians from being able to “operate their businesses and pursue their professions,” including caring for their patients.

“Because of SB 157, many patients seeking procedural abortions will be significantly delayed in accessing this vital, time-sensitive and constitutionally-protected health care until later in pregnancy, when the procedure not only carries greater health risks, but is also more expensive,” the lawsuit states.

The Ohio Department of Health already requires abortion clinics to have at least four backup physicians to obtain the medical variance agreement, something that’s been in place since 2015.

That, alone, is a problem when there aren’t enough doctors to allow for four backup doctors.

“The hostile climate in Southwest Ohio makes it extremely difficult to find even one backup doctor to support a variance,” the lawsuit states. “There has been a national campaign to harass and shame the Dayton doctors who provide backup services to patients of WMD.”

If variances are lost, licenses to practice as an ambulatory surgical facility are lost. That would mean a lose of health care services in Southwest Ohio, meaning the patients would be the ones suffering.

“If plaintiffs’ ASF licenses are revoked, people needing procedural abortions would be forced to travel hundreds of miles round-trip to the next closest procedural abortion providers, and, due to a statutory waiting period, make that trip twice, or stay overnight, in order to access procedural abortion,” the clinics wrote in the lawsuit.

The fact that the lawsuit has been assigned to Judge Alison Hatheway could mean good things for abortion clinics. Hatheway has been the judge on two other lawsuits fighting against state abortion restrictions, and in both cases Hatheway has ruled in favor of temporary stops to state legislation clinics said hampered their right to provide care.

Most recently, Hatheway stopped a fetal tissue disposal law for a second time, saying clinics are “substantially likely to succeed” in their suit against an Ohio law that would require clinics to pay for burial or cremation of fetal tissue resulting from an abortion.

In April of last year, the judge blocked a law restricting telemedicine abortions in the state.

Mar 3, 2022
Abortion bill passage could bring clinic closures in Cincinnati and Southwest Ohio

BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal DECEMBER 9, 2021 12:50 AM

The newest abortion bill to pass the Ohio House could spell the closure of Southwest Ohio clinics and the criminalization of doctors.

Despite multiple Democrat attempts to amend the bill and remove the language that would affect doctors’ ability to transfer patients from abortion facilities, Senate Bill 157 passed Wednesday afternoon along party lines, 59-33.

State Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, attempted to bring in the same amendment she tried to include in committee hearings on the bill, to remove the bill’s provision prohibiting physicians who are affiliated with and funded by public medical schools and institutions from having transfer agreement variances with abortion clinics.

This would effectively close clinics in Southwest Ohio, Russo emphasized in Wednesday’s House session.

“As a reminder to my colleagues, these consulting physicians that are required in order to get a variance from these transfer agreements, do not actually perform abortion services,” Russo said. “They are only consulted by the facility in the very rare case when there is an emergency and the need to transfer a patient to the hospital.”

After the bill was passed, Planned Parenthood’s Southwest Ohio region confirmed this would in fact be true, and is something they plan to fight against.

“Stripping abortion care from Southwest Ohio will cause havoc that disproportionately impacts our communities,” said Kersha Deibel, CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio. “This isn’t the end, and we will continue to fight — abortion is still legal in Ohio.”

The organization said the closure of Planned Parenthood and Women’s Med of Dayton through this bill “would make Cincinnati the biggest metropolitan (area) in Ohio without an abortion provider.”

The bill was originally slated by sponsors to prevent doctors from allowing a fetus born alive after an attempted abortion to die without medical intervention, and to create another reporting system for “failed abortion” cases.

The chairman of the House committee that passed SB 157, state Rep. Susan Manchester, R-Waynesfield, stood in support of the bill on the House floor on Wednesday.

“This is an important piece of legislation that provides a system to protect infants that are born alive after an abortion by enforcing the administration of prevailing standards of care that apply to every child,” Manchester said.

Testimony made throughout the Senate and House committee process by abortion and pro-choice advocates focused on current law that already prohibits doctors from failing to provide care in a life-saving situation, and reporting requirements already in place by the Ohio Department of Health.

Opponents of the bill also said “failed abortions” are a rare occurrence, as shown by state data.

The bill became more controversial once the amendment on physician variance agreements was added, after which abortion advocates called the bill “dangerous,” even saying the bill would impact complicated pregnancies in hospitals, not just abortions in surgical facilities.

Another amendment tabled by the GOP majority attempted to remove the criminal charges physicians face for not following documentation procedure created in the bill. State Rep. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, presented the amendment just as she did in the previous House committee.

In the bill, doctors could face felony charges for failing to provide care to infants after an attempted abortion (something that is already a part of Ohio law), and for failing to file the proper paperwork on “failed abortions” as prescribed in the bill.

Liston said the bill impacts “futile” medical situations in which resuscitation of the baby isn’t scientifically possible and keeping the parent from holding the child only adds to the trauma of the situation.

“The only situations this bill impacts are those emergency circumstances where the woman’s life is at risk or there is a serious complication with the fetus,” Liston said. “These are desired pregnancies and devastating situations to all involved.”

State Rep. Kristen Boggs, D-Columbus, tried to add an amendment for workplace protection for pregnant Ohioans, and state Rep. Stephanie Howse, D-Cleveland, also tried to amend the bill to make workplace accommodations for pregnancies. Also attempted as an amendment was the inclusion of paid family leave, which has been a measure state Rep. Janine Boyd, D-Cleveland Heights, has championed for multiple general assemblies.

All amendments were tabled along party lines.

The bill is headed to conference committee because of a technical change added during hearings in the House Families, Aging & Human Services Committee, and could head to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk in the next week.

DeWine has consistently approved of anti-abortion legislation, so it seems unlikely he will veto the bill.

Abortion is legal up to 22 weeks gestation in Ohio.

Dec 9, 2021
Newest abortion restricting bill heading to full House vote after committee approval

BY: SUSAN TEBBEN – Ohio Capital Journal DECEMBER 8, 2021 12:55 AM

Anti-abortion demonstrators march. (Photo by Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom).

The Ohio House will consider a new abortion regulation that would keep some doctors from being able to work with abortion clinics and could cause felony charges for doctors working on complicated pregnancies.

Russo furthered an argument made by abortion rights proponents in previous testimony against the bill by saying the regulation “effectively bans and removes access to abortion,” particularly in Southwest Ohio, where two abortion clinics are located.

Senate Bill 157 passed through the House Families, Aging and Human Services Committee on Tuesday, approved along party lines. It has already been approved in the Ohio Senate.

The bill would expand the charge of abortion manslaughter, already on the books in Ohio, to include a physicians’ failure to “take measures to preserve the health of a child born alive after abortion,” according to the bill documents.

Under the legislation, a physician who conducts an abortion but finds the fetus is still alive after the abortion to provide life-preserving care, something that opponents of the bill have said is already a part of state law and medical procedure.

There is also a provision in the bill that requires the Ohio Department of Health to develop a “child survival form” for a physician to complete if a child is born alive after an attempted abortion, and for ambulatory surgical facilities to submit monthly and annual reports to the ODH.

The ODH already compiles an annual abortion report based on medical reports signed by physicians of abortions conducted in the state. The report also includes complications, including “failed abortions” that happen in the state and a narrative on the complications.

The bill’s sponsors referred to an abortion in which a child is born alive as a “botched abortion,” but state data shows the occurrence as a “failed abortion.” According to the most recent years of data on abortions in the state, “failed abortions” are rare, and did not happen in any pregnancies that were viable.

An amendment made while the bill was in the Ohio Senate prohibits physicians who are funded through a public institution’s medical school from being a part of abortion clinics written transfer agreement variances, which allow a patient to be transferred to a hospital where the physician practices in the case of emergencies.

Physicians who teach at public medical schools are also not allowed to serve as a consulting physician for abortion-related surgical facility, or the variance can be rescinded, according to the bill.

Democrats attempted to insert amendments into the bill, including one from state Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, that would remove the transfer agreements variance regulation. Russo furthered an argument made by abortion rights proponents in previous testimony against the bill by saying the regulation “effectively bans and removes access to abortion,” particularly in Southwest Ohio, where two abortion clinics are located.

“These are medically unnecessary agreements, but on top of that, because of the broad language, this does ban and remove abortion access for one part of the state in Southwest Ohio,” Russo said.

State Rep. Beth Liston, D-Dublin, introduced an amendment that would take away the word “health” from the bill, leaving the bill to involve a baby’s “life,” which Liston said gives doctors more freedom to do what they feel is best in complicated births and pregnancy plans. Her amendment also sought to remove a requirement that a physician be charged with a third-degree felony for failing to file forms.

“I think that these changes would minimize the downstream impacts and harm that we might see from this legislation in some small ways,” Liston said.

Both amendments were quickly voted down along party lines without further discussion.

The bill now heads for full House consideration, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Abortion is legal in the state of Ohio up to 22 weeks gestation.

Dec 9, 2021
Inside Ohio Republicans’ 10-month war on the state health department over COVID-19

A man protesting Ohio’s health orders at the state Capitol on May 1. Gov. Mike DeWine later repealed most of them only to start reimposing orders on Tuesday as coronavirus cases continued to surge. Capital Journal photo by Marty Schladen

By Jake Zuckerman and Ohio Capital Journal

Ohioans were living with the coronavirus for about two months before GOP lawmakers initiated what would be a nearly yearlong effort to squash the state health department’s ability to issue public health orders.

The earliest version of the idea was to limit any order issued by the Ohio Department of Health to a two-week window. After that, a small panel of lawmakers would need to approve the order for it to stay in effect any further.

“We are clearly on the downside of the curve, there is no longer a risk of overwhelming the health care system,” said now-former Rep. John Becker to the House State and Local Government Committee, setting one of the first legislative attacks on the health department in motion via Senate Bill 1.

“I’m not sure there ever was, but that argument did make sense to me initially.”

Ten months, three gubernatorial vetoes, and more than 520,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 later, little has changed. The Senate passed a similar version of the idea last month on a party-line vote.

A review of emails obtained by public records requests, committee hearings, interviews and contemporaneous media reports highlight just how absent public health was from efforts to wrest power from the health department during a pandemic.

In several instances, abortion politics, coronavirus infections among lawmakers, and overly rosy assessments of the pandemic from Republican leaders played a larger role in the legislation than the coronavirus itself.

SB 1 died an unusual death last May when every state Senator — even the bill’s sponsors — voted it down. Its supporters gave varying explanations from the Senate floor. They said it didn’t have an emergency clause, meaning it wouldn’t take effect for 90 days; and it was clumsily drafted.

Then-Senate President Senate President Larry Obhof, one of the most powerful Republicans in the state, later told constituents that Senators killed the bill, in part, because it could have expanded women’s access to abortion.

“A prominent Right to Life organization pointed out that the language, as written, could allow lawsuits challenging health orders that regulate or close abortion clinics,” he said in an email obtained in a public records request.

“Thus, the language could have been used to protect abortion clinics.”

The concern came from a letter the Greater Columbus Right to Life sent to lawmakers. Ohio Right to Life, which operates independently of the Columbus organization, disagreed, according to its director, Michael Gonidakis. However, he tried to stay out of it.

“We had no desire to be involved in that debate,” he said in a recent interview.

Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, later wrote on Facebook that the bill would have limited the state’s ability to “shut down illegal abortion clinics.” Then-Speaker of the House Larry Householder, R-Glenford, prior to being indicted in an alleged racketeering scheme, commented on the post. He told the senator to “grow a pair” and called his rationale “bullshit.”

Mar 9, 2021