Challenge to block on 6-week abortion ban dismissed by Ohio Supreme Court

Watch a previous report on the challenge to the six-week abortion ban in the video player above.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Ohio Supreme Court tossed out the state’s challenge to a block on the six-week abortion ban, freeing a Hamilton County judge to rule on abortion clinics’ request to strike down the ban as unconstitutional.

In light of a “change of law,” the one-sentence order reads, Attorney General Dave Yost’s challenge to a preliminary injunction on the ban was dismissed Friday. The original court tasked with deciding whether the six-week ban was unconstitutional can now review the case with a newly-recognized state constitutional right to the procedure in the backdrop.

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The decision comes a day after the abortion clinics that challenged the abortion ban asked the Hamilton County judge who approved the preliminary injunction to strike the law down outright, citing the passage of Issue 1. The state constitutional amendment that nearly 57% of Ohioans approved in November establishes the right to abortion and other reproductive health care and prohibits bans on the procedure before viability, as determined by an individual’s physician.

Issue 1’s passage rendered the state’s “Heartbeat Act,” which bans the procedure after about six weeks gestation, in violation of the state constitution, both abortion rights activists and anti-abortion Yost agreed. After briefly being permitted to go into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, the ban has been blocked since September 2022.

Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins, who ordered the preliminary injunction, will now decide whether to strike the law down altogether.

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