Advocates argue for and against ending Ohio’s 24-hour waiting period for abortions

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Attorneys challenging Ohio’s 24-hour abortion waiting period and minimum in-person visitation rules presented arguments Friday why enforcement of those laws should be halted while they fight to repeal them altogether.

Jessie Hill represented the ACLU of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, abortion clinics and a doctor in the Franklin County case and said the constitutional amendment passed last November that legalized reproductive rights statewide “is broad and clear,” protecting rights that she says state laws restrict.

“It is a wrong to prevent you from doing something that you want to do and that you have a right to do if it is prevented by a law that provides penalties,” Hill told Judge David Young during a preliminary injunction hearing.

Based on arguments presented at Friday’s hearing, a judge will decide whether, in the face of ongoing legal proceedings, a 24-hour waiting period and at least two in-person visits will continue to be required before abortion services can be provided.

Those challenging the law are entitled to an injunction, Hill said, “because the challenged requirements blatantly discriminate against abortion patients and providers.”

Hill argued that the state does not object to courts having to apply the amendment to “test” other existing abortion laws. She then cited a legal analysis that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost published before the November election that explained how the amendment would affect abortion services statewide.

In this analysiswhich Yost said was “intended solely to describe the legal implications of Issue 1 for our state,” listed several laws that “I expect will certainly be challenged at some point,” and said the amendment would “create a new standard …and make it harder for Ohio to uphold laws that were already held to be valid before the (2022) Dobbs decision.”

“In other words, the amendment would provide abortion with more protection and freedom from regulation than at any time in Ohio’s history,” Yost wrote.

The 24-hour waiting period is one of the provisions mentioned in his legal analysis that is potentially affected by the amendment, as are provisions relating to “informed consent.”

“One can foresee a court decision finding that the waiting period is a ‘burden,’ but that informed consent is not,” Yost wrote. “If so, neither provision is likely to survive the ‘exclusive control’ test.”

Yost also notes that the state “can regulate Just in order to “improve the health of pregnant women.”

“This means that the state cannot regulate anything else intention Or interest at all, no matter how lenient the rules are,” Yost wrote. “Thus, long-established interests in fetal life or in medical ethics cannot be protected, making rights previously upheld on those grounds no longer valid, even if the interests rise to the level of ‘compelling.’

The attorney general has since changed his position, opposing lawsuits seeking to invalidate the law and stating that abortion clinics you can’t question the rights such as the 24-hour waiting period regulation.

On Friday, the Attorney General’s Office argued that removing enforcement authority would defeat the purpose of the temporary injunction, which is to maintain the “status quo,” according to Amanda Narog, senior legal counsel in the attorney general’s office.

“We are talking about over three decades of abortion law in this state,” Narog told the judge.

But Hill has pushed back, saying the status quo changed when voters approved a constitutional amendment on reproductive rights that took effect in December 2023. So, of course, laws they deem to violate the amendment will be challenged.

“That was the whole purpose of the amendment,” Hill said.

Narog argued that the state “can regulate the practice of medicine in Ohio,” pointing to Hill’s arguments that doctors provide informed consent (in the case of abortion and other areas of medicine) by virtue of their medical training and will do so regardless of what the law says.

The attorney general’s office did not object to the amendment’s language and what it means for the state, even as Narog argued that the 24-hour waiting period and in-person appearance requirement should remain in place.

“It is well established that women have a right to an abortion before they are viable under the Ohio Constitution,” Narog said. “There is no reason to believe that women cannot do that.”

Young did not provide a timeline for when he might decide on the state’s temporary injunction or motion to dismiss.

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