Taking her ceremonial oath of office on Wednesday, Ohio’s new Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy promised “a new day” at the high court and could cast the deciding vote on crucial topics in the state like abortion and redistricting.
Kennedy, who becomes the second female justice to preside over the state’s highest court, said she didn’t initially picture the moment.
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A coalition of abortionists and pro-choice activists have announced their intent to file a ballot initiative to insert legalized abortion in the Ohio Constitution.
The group called Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom is a group formed by the left-leaning organizations the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio, Abortion Fund of Ohio, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, and others.
Read MoreThe “Abortion Pill,” also known as RU-486, could previously only be prescribed by medical professionals in the United States. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) has officially authorized pharmacy distribution of RU-486, but an Ohio law passed in 2004 forbids pharmacies from distributing these harmful pills.
The drug, commonly known as Mifepristone, has recently received FDA approval, and retailers like Walgreens and CVS across the U.S. have already declared they will stock it. In Ohio however, only doctors with specific training and certification can offer, sell, dispense, or administer the drugs.
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Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate see Ohio’s elections earlier this week as reason to seek change.
In 2019, Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed the Heartbeat Act to protect unborn life in cases when doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat. The act’s fate is now tied up in the courts but pro-lifers have reason for optimism that the law will be upheld as Republicans maintained control of the Ohio Supreme Court by sweeping the judicial elections this year.
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When U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) came to Shaker Heights, OH this week to fundraise for Democratic 13th-District congressional candidate Emilia Sykes, Republican hopeful Madison Gesiotto Gilbert was happy to let constituents know about it.
This wasn’t the speaker’s first major show of support for Sykes; Pelosi cut her a $30,000 check via her campaign organization in July. When Pelosi flew east to support Sykes, a state representative from Ohio’s 34th Legislative District who the National Republican Congressional Committee calls Pelosi’s “protégé,” Republican spokesperson Courtney Parella put out a statement saying, “Emilia Sykes is bought and paid for by Nancy Pelosi and would serve as a rubber stamp for Pelosi’s failed economic agenda.”
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Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins (D) this week indicated he will extend his hold on a significant Ohio abortion-restricting law for two additional weeks.
Jenkins’s decision prolongs the effect of a decision he made last week to obstruct the Heartbeat Act’s implementation, with the initial freeze to last two weeks. The state General Assembly passed and Governor Mike DeWine (R) signed the bill (SB 23) in 2019. The legislation, which prohibits aborting unborn children who have detectable heartbeats, could not take effect until this year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
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Abortion provider Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio filed litigation in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas on Friday to kill Senate Bill 23, the Ohio law banning abortion after the unborn child has a detectable heartbeat.
Lawmakers passed and Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed that statute in 2019, though it only took effect this year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Although the high court refused to uphold that ruling’s stipulation that the federal Constitution bestows right to terminate a pregnancy — while mentioning neither pregnancy nor abortion — the abortion advocates argue that the Ohio Constitution — also silent on abortion — still grants that right.
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Abortion provider Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio filed litigation in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas on Friday to kill Senate Bill 23, the Ohio law banning abortion after the unborn child has a detectable heartbeat.
Lawmakers passed and Republican Governor Mike DeWine signed that statute in 2019, though it only took effect this year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Although the high court refused to uphold that ruling’s stipulation that the federal Constitution bestows right to terminate a pregnancy — while mentioning neither pregnancy nor abortion — the abortion advocates argue that the Ohio Constitution — also silent on abortion — still grants that right.
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The Ohio law that bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, generally at six weeks’ gestation, will remain in effect while a lawsuit filed by abortion providers continues against it.
The law took effect after the state Supreme Court denied a request by abortion providers for an emergency stay on the legislation to allow abortions to continue while the lawsuit proceeds.
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Ohio Right to Life Tuesday reacted after a leaked draft of an opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the infamous Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal at the federal level, was published in German-owned Politico.
Mary Parker, the Director of Legislative Affairs at Ohio Right to Life, emphasized that if the leaked opinion holds, abortion will not be made illegal, but decisions about whether abortion should be legal will be left up to individual states.
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Ohio Right to Life, a grassroots pro-life organization, endorsed J.D. Vance in the state’s U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman.
The organization selected Vance over the three other candidates considered frontrunners in the race: Jane Timken, Josh Mandel, and Mike Gibbons.
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A “trigger bill” was introduced this week in the Ohio General Assembly that would ban abortion in nearly all cases provided that certain conditions are met.
The text of HB 598 is clear: No person shall purposely cause or induce an abortion by either of the following: (1) Prescribing, administering, or personally furnishing a drug or substance; (2) Using an instrument or other means.
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The executive director of Ohio Right to Life told The Star News Network he and the more than 100 young people he bused to Washington for Friday’s 49th March for Life could have marched for the last time under the current abortion regime.
“We believe in the power of prayer, and we believe prayer through all these years of the movement has brought us to this point,” said Peter Range, who just joined Ohio Right to Life after working as the director of the Life and Justice Office at the Diocese of Toledo.
“A point – that this could literally be the last March for Life that happened under Roe v. Wade, because of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case the Supreme Court will rule on,” said Range.
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The national March for Life in Washington D.C. looked very different on Friday compared to past years. Normally, thousands of pro-life demonstrators would march through the Capitol in the yearly march, but this year the thousands turned to social media to watch as a few hundred hand-picked representatives of the pro-life movement marched in D.C. By Friday evening, a Facebook livestream of the event had over 200,000 views.
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The Ohio State Senate passed a bill Wednesday banning telemedicine abortion procedures.
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Two anti-abortion bills in the Ohio Senate have cleared the Health Committee, making way for closer restrictions on abortion pill reverse treatment and rights of abortion survivors. Both could get a vote by the full Senate as early as Wednesday.
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Two pro-life bills in the Senate Health, Human Services and Medicaid Committee will be heard this week. Chairman Dave Burke (R-Marysville) has scheduled Senate Bills 155 and 208 for their fourth hearings and for a possible vote.
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Attorney General Dave Yost filed a petition to the 6th Circuit Court for “REHEARING AND REHEARING EN BANC” (emphasis his) to reconsider their recent block of Ohio’s ban on Down Syndrome abortions Friday, Gongwer reported. Senate President Larry Obhof (R-Medina) and Ohio Right to Life had pushed for reconsideration.
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A Republican-backed bill making its way through the Ohio House would require the Ohio Department of Health and the state’s board of education to develop an instructional program that teaches “the humanity of the unborn child.” Each school district would then have the option of teaching the program or…
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An Ohio court of appeals recently ruled in support of a decision to revoke the license of Martin Haskell’s Dayton-area Women’s Med Center abortion clinic, meaning either the clinic will close or the case will head to the Ohio Supreme Court. Haskell owns and operates three abortion facilities across the…
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The Ohio House of Representatives passed a landmark bill Thursday that if signed into law would ban all abortions after the unborn baby’s heartbeat is detected. But if the legislature is unable to override an expected veto of the heartbeat bill by Gov. John Kasich, then there’s another bill waiting…
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The Ohio House of Representatives voted Thursday to pass a bill that would ban almost all abortions upon detection of a heartbeat in the unborn baby. But the bill did not pass by a big enough margin to make it veto-proof, and Gov. John Kasich has staunchly opposed it, arguing…
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