COLUMBUS, Ohio — The decision is out. The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision Friday to overturn Roe V. Wade.
Now the question is, what happens next?
There was a move from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost Friday morning to throw out a court hold on the state's so-called “heartbeat" bill.
In 2019, Gov. Mike DeWine signed that bill banning abortions once a heartbeat is detected. However, it was blocked by a federal judge.
The "heartbeat" bill is the next step to restrict abortion access in Ohio since two so-called “trigger laws” failed to pass in time for the Supreme Court decision. Here’s a breakdown of what they are and what they mean:
Trigger law: What is it?
It's state legislation previously passed to quickly ban abortion if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade — allowing states to decide the procedure's legality.
Which states have a trigger law?
Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
So what does this mean for Ohio?
The two "trigger bills" are pending in the Ohio General Assembly, which are House Bill 598 and Senate Bill 123. Because these are pending, there will be no immediate legislative action now following the Supreme Court's decision.
There are other abortion laws in Ohio, including the "Born Alive" bill. Gov. DeWine signed the legislation in December 2021, which imposes criminal penalties on doctors who fail to give medical care in the rare circumstance a baby is born alive following an abortion attempt.
Then in April 2019, Gov. DeWine signed a bill banning abortions after a detectable heartbeat. It's been halted by a federal judge.
Speaking to 700 WLW News Radio in Cincinnati Friday morning, the governor addressed the heartbeat bill.
“[There are] exceptions in there,” Gov.DeWine explained. “Life of the mother, serious harm to the mother.”
Right now, abortion is legal in Ohio up to 20 weeks of pregnancy postfertilization and up to 22 weeks since your last menstrual cycle.
“If we have a pregnant mother who because of poverty, because of drug addiction, because of any number of abuse - any number of reasons, is having a difficult time that the rest of society - all of us - have an obligation to try to help,” DeWine said. “When I became governor, I really decided that I wanted Ohio to be the most pro-family, most pro-child state in the union and that I would work every single day to try and do that.”
Dr. Allison Norris is an associate professor in the College of Medicine and the College of Public Health at The Ohio State University. She is also co-principal investigator of the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network. She has researched what would happen if abortion became unavailable in Ohio.
“If abortion care becomes banned in Ohio, there are three possibilities of what could happen to the people who need an abortion. Some people will end up traveling out of state, some people will not get an abortion and will have a birth that they did not want and some people will self-source an abortion,” she said.
Dr. Norris said the research that they’ve done examines how far women will have to travel.
“People in Ohio who need to have an abortion will travel seven times on average further than they travel now, it could be as much as 10 times further than they travel," she said. "Now, that'll have a huge impact. Because the cost of time and effort to travel that far is a huge burden. And of course, that burden doesn't land equally on everybody. People who don't have money or don't have a car or don't have support to take care of children that they have at home will be less likely to obtain those abortions."
Dr. Norris said not having an abortion will have consequences, some of them potentially fatal.
“The risk of dying from birth is 14 times greater than the risk of dying from abortion,” she said.
Dr. Norris is urging lawmakers in Ohio to have empathy for the people who are seeking abortion care and to consider the scientific evidence about the safety of abortion.
ABORTION IN OHIO
There were 20,605 abortions in Ohio in 2020, according to data kept by the Ohio Department of Health. The most recent data for 2021 is not yet available.
In 2020, there was a 3% increase from the year before, according to that data.
The data from 2020 also show more than half of all induced abortions involved pregnancies of less than nine weeks. About 44% of Ohioans who got an abortion in 2020 were white, 48% were African American, and 3% were Asian/Pacific Islander. Roughly one in 12 women were under the age of 20.