Ohio Republican Lawmakers Look to Regulate Abortion, Push Against Constitutional Amendment – Cleveland Scene

Ohio Republican lawmakers have introduced several bills to regulate abortion and reproductive health care despite the constitutional amendment approved by 57% of Ohio voters in 2023.

One bill introduced by Republican sponsors in the Ohio House attempts to bring up the “fetal personhood” debate again, while another seeks to further regulate medication prescribed through telehealth.

Yet another Republican bill touches on the information required to be shared by physicians when discussing abortion, and a fourth bill would bar Medicaid funds from going to facilities that provide abortion.

Abortion rights supporters think moves to continue regulating abortion in the state despite an amendment adding abortion rights to the state constitution mirror a national movement from Republican leaders to try to push back against abortion rights.

Because Ohio has a Republican supermajority in the legislature, a Republican governor and attorney general, along with an Ohio Supreme Court that has a 6 to 1 Republican majority, Danielle Firsich, director of public policy for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio, says that anti-abortion sentiment in the halls of government is more empowered.

“We’re kind of in a perfect storm in the state of Ohio in this space,” Firsich said. “Even if some of these bills are flagrantly unconstitutional, it’s just a waste of our time, of the legislature’s time, of the taxpayer’s time.”

Providers, prescriptions and personhood

While women’s health providers are already banned from using Medicaid funds specifically for abortion services, Ohio House Bill 410 piggybacks onto the work of congressional Republicans in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July.

The federal bill keeps federal funds from going to nonprofit organizations who received more than $800,000 in federal and state Medicaid payments in fiscal year 2023, specifically those that serve “predominantly low-income, medically underserved individuals by primarily providing family planning services, reproductive health and related medical care,” according to the Legislative Service Commission.

The banned organizations are those that provide abortions when the life of the pregnant individual isn’t in danger and the pregnancy didn’t result from rape or incest.

The state bill introduced Aug. 7 bars state Medicaid funds from going to those organizations as well. The bill’s co-sponsor, state Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, claimed to the House Medicaid Committee when introducing the bill that it would not interfere with “a woman’s ability to exercise their constitutional rights under the Ohio Constitution.”

“In fact, we are upholding the core principles of our constitution to ‘enjoy and defend life and liberty,’” Schmidt said. “Although I do not believe they should exist, entities that provide elective abortions can continue to operate in Ohio and allow women to exercise that constitutional right to choose — the state will simply not provide the funding.”

The method of pushing bills that are directly related to measures that have either been struck down by courts or enshrined in the state constitution has historically been “fairly uncommon,” according to one political science professor, but a rise in these deliberate moves concerns not only those in the pro-abortion space, but political science in general.

“The rule of law should be considered as a rule of the people as a body politic,” said Ohio State University professor Jos Raadschelders. “And it is through their representation that laws are made.”

The state constitution was amended in 2023 to include abortion rights as part of it with 57% of Ohio voters approving the measure.

“I don’t care whether you’re in favor or against abortion,” Raadschelders said. “The one problem you should have with this … those are moral issues, and government should stay away from legislative morality.”

A true test of the amendment could come from Ohio House Bill 370, the language of which states an aim “to acknowledge the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from the beginning of biological development to natural death.”

The bill follows the messaging of previous “personhood bills,” in and outside of Ohio, which seek to give rights to the unborn, even before they have viability or development of any kind.

The bill notes the U.S. Constitution’s overriding authority over the state constitution, and presents an argument that the 14th Amendment would protect “preborn persons.”

The legislation seeks to repeal “provisions that may otherwise allow a person to direct, advise, encourage or solicit a mother to abort her child” as well.

Firsich said pro-abortion groups are “not un-used to fetal personhood bills,” but they have a less-than-consistent success rate across the country.

“Fetal personhood is so astoundingly unpopular that it’s much harder to get passed,” Firsich said, adding that the topic often splits anti-abortion groups as well.

Still, with national pushes to re-review previously FDA approved medication abortion drugs, and comments from federal leaders supporting anti-abortion movements, abortion rights supporters may not be able to rely on past precedent to guide the future of these new bills.

“They’re going to be using the death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach,” Firsich said. “You make it impossible for medical facilities to work, and it becomes a national abortion ban.”

In a bill that could come in conflict with not only the state constitution but also a recent court decision, Ohio House Bill 347 would only allow an “elective abortion” after a 24-hour waiting period in which a physician must “provide specified information and document the woman’s informed consent, except in the case of a medical emergency.”

The legislation would “permit” the State Medical Board to “adopt rules specifying adverse physical or psychological conditions arising from abortion that a physician must disclose as possible complications when meeting with the pregnant woman as part of the informed consent process,” according to the Legislative Service Commission analysis of the bill.

One of the members of the State Medical Board is Michael Gonidakis, a past president of the anti-abortion group Ohio Right to Life, and who is currently listed on the organization’s website as a “member trustee.”

Reproductive health facility representatives have said rules are already in place as part of basic medical standards to inform patients of the risks of medical procedures.

“This (new bill) not only sets up additional barriers for medications like mifepristone, but also requires misinformation from providers,” Firsich said.

A more generalized bill that has abortion rights advocates like Firsich concerned is a proposal to change regulations around the sale of “drugs causing severe adverse effects” and establish conditions on drug prescriptions.

Ohio House Bill 324 would require the director of the Ohio Department of Health to determine if individual drugs cause “severe adverse effects in greater than 5% of the drug’s users,” including death, hospitalization due to infection or hemorrhage, organ failure, or sepsis, according to the bill.

The determination would be based on insurance claims, patient reports, and FDA data. If an over-the-counter drug is determined to have caused those adverse effects in more than 5% of users, pharmacies and other retailers would be barred from selling it. The drug also couldn’t be distributed via mail-order.

The bill further requires an in-person examination of a patient and a follow-up appointment if a drug falling under the category is being prescribed by a physician.

“These measures ensure that patients receiving high-risk medications, even in an era of expanding telehealth, are protected through direct medical supervision, reducing the likelihood of preventable harm,” state Rep. Meredith Craig, R-Smithville, told the House Health Committee in June.

The bill itself does not mention medication abortion drugs like mifepristone, but supporters of the bill included anti-abortion groups like the Center for Christian Virtue and Ohio Right to Life, both of whom mentioned the abortion pills as part of their supporting testimony.

“At the heart of this legislation is the protection of women and children from dangerous drugs — most notably, chemical abortion pills,” said Katie DeLand, legislative director for Ohio Right to Life in testimony on Sept. 24.

The abortion drug mifepristone has been approved as safe and effective by the FDA for 25 years, since September 2000.

Planned Parenthood locations in the state have been pivoting to telehealth more because the loss of federal funding for non-abortion services, such as STI testing and preventive care, has resulted in closures and workforce reductions.

Having bills that further regulate medications as the access to care is reduced could negatively affect the patients more than any one else, advocates note.

“If you have a bunch of people who are having to get emergency medical care, there is only so much the medical field can do,” Firsich said. “It’s a massive ripple effect that touches a lot of other issues, and it becomes so overwhelming to operate in that system when you don’t know what you’re allowed to access and where and when.”

Hearings and recourse

The bill on Medicaid funds was scheduled for a second hearing on Tuesday for supporters to speak on the measure.

The high-risk medication bill is set to have its third hearing on Wednesday in the Ohio House Health Committee.

The Ohio House Health Committee has heard sponsor testimony on the bill to change informed consent laws in the state, but has not scheduled another hearing.

While the “prenatal protection” bill was introduced in June, it wasn’t referred to the Ohio House Judiciary Committee until September. No hearings have been scheduled on the bill.

Raadschelders said the current federal and state legislative system is working in a way he calls “na na bo boo politics.”

“’I’ll do to you, now that I’m in power, what you did to me,’” Raadschelders said. “The legislature overriding the voters’ will is an act of unbelievable arrogance.”

The only recourse from here, both Firsich and Raadschelders said, is “the people.”

“The founding fathers … they knew they were human, they knew they were not writing law the way that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments, that they would be written in stone,” he said. “The pendulum will swing back and I’m afraid the Republicans are eating each other alive.”

Firsich said the fight will be a long-term one, with challenges to perceived rights violations coming “in real time.”

“We literally can’t afford to be apathetic about these things,” she said. “People really want their elected officials to be people who are fighting for them, who are not backing down.”

Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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