On Wednesday, September 2, 2022, ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) of Ohio, Planned Parenthood, and the Law Firm of WilmerHale filed a temporary restraining order against Ohio’s 6-week abortion ban. Otherwise known as the “heartbeat law”, a ruling that was put into place after Roe v. Wade had been overturned in June of this year. This means once there is cardiac activity detected- typically around six weeks-abortion would no longer be an option. 

The restraining order was brought to a Hamilton County Judge, who then granted the order on September 14, 2022. This order has now made abortion, once again, legal in Ohio up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. It will further stay in effect until September 28, 2022. 

The day of the ruling, Judge Christian A. Jenkins, stated “S.B 23 clearly discriminates against pregnant women and places an enormous burden on them to secure safe and effective health care such that it violates Ohio’s Equal Protection and benefit Clause and is therefore unconstitutional”. 

Afterwards, an interview conducted by CNN, Miceal Gonidakis-an Ohio Right to Life President-stated “by forum shopping, abortion activists temporarily got what they wanted”. He further went on to state, “We can assure pro-life Ohio that in the near future Ohio will become abortion free, regardless of what this local judge ruled today.”

According to ACLU’s direct website a statement from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Northeast Ohio women’s center, ACLU, and others, it was said “We’re grateful that, for now, Ohioans can once again widely access abortion care in their own state, But this is just the first step. We have already seen the devastating impact Senate Bill 23 has has on people seeking abortions in Ohio. Senate lawmakers will stop at nothing to try again to permanently restrict our reproductive rights; their cruelty knows no bound. We remain intensely committed to defending against any and all attempts to limit Ohioans’ constitutional right to access the full range of reproductive health care in their home state.”

The abortion ban that has been in place for the past three months has already caused such a tremendis amount of tradgedy and has been a series of unfortunate events, especially in regards to the 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by Gerson Fuentes, 27. She later had to cross state lines to Indiana to recieve a medical abortion seeing how she had been pregnant past six weeks and was not eligible for an abortion in the state of Ohio.