The Ohio Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to review a county judge鈥檚 order that is blocking enforcement of the state's near-ban on abortions, and to consider whether the clinics challenging the law have legal standing to do so.
In its split decision, the court, however, denied Republican Attorney General Dave Yost's of the right to an abortion under the Ohio Constitution, leaving those arguments to play out in lower court.
This mean abortions remain legal in the state for now up to 20 weeks' gestation.
Yost appealed Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins鈥� order to the state鈥檚 high court in January, after a to get it overturned by the First District Court of Appeals. The appellate court ruled the appeal premature, as it was only an interim step in the lawsuit challenging the so-called heartbeat law's constitutionality.
Justices will now decide whether such orders are appropriate legal procedure, or attempts by lower courts to block laws they don't like, as Yost has asserted.
Abortion rights organizations want the law to remain blocked, pointing to the on patients, doctors and clinics during the 66 days that the Ohio ban was in effect last year.
The law signed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in April 2019 prohibits most abortions after the first detectable 鈥渇etal heartbeat.鈥� Cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they鈥檙e pregnant. The law had been blocked through a different legal challenge until right after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
The ruling effectively nullified all abortion-rights lawsuits across the country that had cited the federal constitution, sending the question .
The lawsuit filed in Jenkins' court argues a similar right exists under the Ohio Constitution.