COLUMBUS – Ohio’s Republican attorney general has GOP governors and members of Congress from 23 other states in mounting a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Dave Yost and his counterparts have filed a brief urging the high court to overturn the landmark decision because the court cannot satisfactorily cite a constitutional source of a right for a woman to obtain an abortion or a consistent legal standard for determining when a state law banning abortions is unconstitutional.
“The jurisprudence of abortion has become like the 1960s fights over pornography–no one can say exactly what’s allowed and what’s not. It’s like Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography: ‘I know it when I see it,’” Yost said.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Thursday headed up a coalition of governors signing onto a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Mississippi, which wants to enforce its abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
A similar brief was filed by 228 members of the U.S. House and Senate.
According to Yost, the Constitution does not mention abortion and until the Roe v. Wade decision, was generally regulated by state law.
The lack of a constitutional definition and clear legal standard has resulted in closely divided Supreme Court decisions on the issue, Yost claimed.
“It’s time to end this failed experiment in judicial law-making and return the matter to the states,” he said.
Democratic state Sen. Tina Maharath of Canal Winchester said she was “disappointed and dismayed” that Yost was advocating for the court to overturn its decision.
“Should Roe v. Wade be overturned, there is little doubt that Ohio’s Republican legislators will attempt to outlaw abortion care outright in our state…This would not put an end to abortions in Ohio. Those with the means to do so will leave our state for their health care needs, and others may turn to more dangerous methods of inducing abortion,” she said.
The high court is set to hear a legal challenge to the law later this year.