Two lawsuits recently filed in Ohio are taking on the 2023 voter-approved constitutional amendment that legalized reproductive rights and abortion access.
The lawsuits are on different grounds and in different courts. One was filed in Trumbull County and the other in Butler County. They both challenge the amendment voters approved in 2023 as unconstitutional.
“The enemy overplayed their hand," said Janet Folger Porter, president of Faith 2 Action, said in a video posted to her group’s webpage about the Butler County lawsuit.
“You cannot amend multiple portions of it with a simple ballot vote. What you have to do if you are going to change multiple portions of the Constitution, you’ve got to have a constitutional convention. And they didn’t do that," Folger Porter said.
Trumbull County Judge David Engler filed the other lawsuit, claiming the amendment took away his authority to deny or grant abortions to minors.
An attorney from the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative at Case Western Reserve said one addresses a parents' rights issue spelled out in the amendment, while the other challenges the process used to pass the amendment.
“I think what they demonstrate, if anything, is just that you know we are about two and a half years out from the Ohio voters adopting these reproductive freedom amendments to the Ohio Constitution and it turns out it is working," said Jessie Hill, who's challenged several abortion law and also represents the ACLU of Ohio.
Hill said opponents of the 2023 amendment are taking legal steps to try to weaken that protection.
“I can say unequivocally there is no merit to any of the arguments in either lawsuit," Hill said.
Folger Porter pushed for more than a decade to get Ohio lawmakers to pass what was known as the "Heartbeat Bill". It banned abortion when a fetal heartbeat could be detected, around six weeks into a pregnancy when many women don't realize they are pregnant. Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law in 2019, just a few months after taking office. It was put on hold by courts until June of 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The six-week ban was again halted in September 2022 through a court challenge, and never went back into effect. Voters approved the reproductive rights amendment in November 2023, and the ban was ruled unconstitutional in October 2024.
There are several bills that also seek to challenge Ohio's new amendment. One is House Bill 87 would allow for "conceived children" to be claimed as dependents, essentially offering "personhood" status to a fertilized egg. It's backed by End Abortion Now. President Austin Beigel said that's legal under the U.S. constitution, which he said gives an embryo rights in saying "no person may be deprived of rights without due process of law." Though Republicans control all three branches of state government, that bill has not moved much in the legislative process.
