Ohio AG Yost: Voters didn't approve abortion rights measure to block 24-hour waiting period

Ohioans didn't vote on Issue 1 to eliminate a 24-hour waiting period before abortions, the state Attorney General Dave Yost's office argues in a new filing.

Yost, a Republican who opposed Issue 1, asked a Franklin County Common Pleas Court to uphold Ohio laws that require those seeking abortions to wait 24 hours after their initial, in-person appointment. Under these rules, doctors also must inform patients of the medical risks of abortions and the probable gestational age of the embryo or fetus.

Ohio abortion providers say these rules are unnecessary and insulting to patients who have already carefully considered their decisions. Abortion clinics sued to block them under new constitutional language protecting abortion access that 57% of voters approved in November.

But Yost's office says voters wanted to return Ohio abortion policy to a time before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, sending decisions about abortion access to state lawmakers and courts. At that point, these laws requiring a waiting period and other notices had already been ruled constitutional.

"The amendment was meant to restore the pre-Dobbs legal regime − a regime that allowed and upheld Ohio’s waiting period, in person, and informed consent provisions," wrote Assistant Attorney General Amanda Narog in a Wednesday filing. "Voters were primarily told, by the dominant and successful voices, that the amendment would restore the status quo."

Narog also wrote that Ohio's informed consent requirement "comports, rather than conflicts, with the amendment because it ensures that every woman exercising her right to abortion does so voluntarily."

Attorney Jessie Hill, who is representing Ohio abortion clinics in the lawsuit, said voters knew what they approved: access to abortion without medically unnecessary restrictions.

"The attorney general is acting as though the amendment doesn't say what it says and the people of Ohio didn't pass the law they passed," Hill said.

The state also contends that abortion clinics don't have the legal authority to sue and face no imminent harm from these laws. Opponents of these laws waited five months after the November vote to file a lawsuit.

Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge David Young, a Democrat, is reviewing the case and will decide whether the laws should be blocked temporarily.

Ohio Attorney General opposes an effort to block the state waiting period for abortions by jbalmert on Scribd

Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Abortion measure: Ohio voters didn't want to ax waiting period, AG says