Judge blocks Ohio from applying laws to telemedicine, prescription-only abortions

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A Cincinnati judge has halted enforcement of Ohio laws barring women from using telemedicine for medical abortions and barring registered nurse midwives, physician assistants and other medical professionals. non-medical doctors to prescribe pills.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Alison Hatheway’s Aug. 29 The order also repeals a law that prohibits medical providers from prescribing mifepristone, one of the abortifacient drugs, without a prescription. In other words, the laws prohibit prescribing the drug in any way that differs from the last published letter of the US Food and Drug Administration when it approved the drug.

The order suspends the implementation of those laws pending the final outcome of the court case challenging it.

The first order comes at a time when abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood and Preterm-Cleveland, are challenging decades of abortion laws passed by the Ohio General Assembly. Last November, 57% of voters supported a general constitutional amendment protecting abortion and other reproductive rights.

Hatheway’s order is the second ban on anti-abortion laws from an Ohio court since last November. A Franklin County judge blocked a law requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion in Aug. 23, and clinics and doctors are awaiting a Cincinnati judge’s final ruling on the fetal heartbeat law.

Cleveland.com / The Plain Dealer asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican who is considering a run for governor in 2026, if he plans to appeal Hatheway’s order.

Hatheway wrote that after voters approved an abortion rights amendment in November, the laws are unconstitutional because abortion laws can only be enacted to protect the life of the patient.

Hatheway said the amendment provides protections for women that go beyond the US Supreme Court’s previous landmark decisions on abortion rights, including Roe v. Wade in 1973, which generally established the right to abortion; Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, which affirmed that right but also allowed certain restrictions; and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, which said abortion rights laws should be left up to states.

“The language of the Amendment clearly asserts that it provides greater protection of the right of individuals to make their own reproductive choices than that adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Roe and Casey, who made the administration before Dobbs,” he wrote.

Some of the laws that Hatheway has been banned from are decades old.

The legislature passed an off-label mifepristone law in 2004. Physician assistants have been prohibited from prescribing the abortion pill since 2006. Governor Mike DeWine signed the legislature’s abortion ban into law in 2020. , although Hatheway had placed it in a series of temporary cases. starting in 2021.

READ MORE: 24-hour waiting period, ‘Choose Life’ license and ‘fetal heartbeat’ bill: Ohio has passed several laws prohibiting abortion.

“This is a historic victory for abortion patients and for all Ohio voters who have shown support for a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy,” said Jessie Hill, spokeswoman for law and Case Western Reserve University law professor who worked with the ACLU of Ohio. in the matter. “It is clear that the newly amended Ohio Constitution works as the voters intended: to protect the fundamental right to abortion and prevent the state from infringing on it except as necessary to protect the health of the pregnant woman. This decision is the first step in removing unnecessary barriers to care. We celebrate this decision and will move forward to make this order permanent.”

Peter Range, senior fellow for policy at the conservative policy group Center for Christian Virtue, said the off-label ban on mifepristone protects women and babies.

“The ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the abortion community have made it clear: they are following every common law that protects mothers and babies in our country,” he said. “This latest judgment is just another example of how they want to have an abortion on demand, without any restrictions.”

Hatheway’s order dealt with the medical abortion system, which Ohio allows up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. It involves taking mifepristone and another abortion medication, misoprostol, one to two days apart.

Although the 24-hour waiting period law and related laws relating to legal forms and notices that women must be given are restricted, they are not excluded outright. If the 24-hour waiting period and legal forms and notices were to apply, patients would have to visit the clinic twice. The first will be for a government-sanctioned and ultrasound examination and the second will be for the abortion itself at least 24 hours later, which for medical abortion requires the woman to take mifepristone .

A woman generally takes a second abortion pill, misoprostol, at home, according to Hatheway’s instructions.

Under the doctors’ law, patients are limited in which clinics they can visit because it must be a place with a doctor. In the case of Planned Parenthood, only the Cincinnati, East Columbus and Bedford Heights locations have doctors on staff because they are facilities that provide surgical abortions.

On the second visit, the patient must return to one of these locations. Patients can also visit places with technology to talk to a doctor in a surgery center, although the legislature has tried to prevent that with the telemedicine law. But Hatheway, by a series of orders, did not allow the government to enforce it.

In the case of Planned Parenthood, they could visit Planned Parenthood clinics in Dayton, Hamilton, Butler County, Mansfield or Youngstown and consult with their doctor at the surgery center via telemedicine technology.

Hatheway wrote: “The medical abortions discussed here, and abortions in general, are among the safest treatments in modern medicine.

He noted that many patients prefer the privacy and ability to terminate a pregnancy offered by a medical abortion, as opposed to a surgical abortion, which must be performed in a clinic. For some women, it feels more invasive.

Hatheway concluded that abortion advocates might succeed in their cause, since the abortion rights amendment had passed.

“Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the (restrictions) provided herein violate these newly drafted rights in a non-restrictive manner, and actually cause harm to the patients of Plaintiffs,” Hatheway wrote. “The state fails to provide any argument that these policies are the least restrictive means of promoting patient health and are consistent with generally accepted and evidence-based standards of care.”

Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.