Will a New Lawsuit Stop the Abortion Rights Amendment in Ohio?

Jo Ingels, Will a New Lawsuit Stop the Abortion Rights Amendment in Ohio?

Groups backing an abortion rights amendment are gathering signatures to put it on the ballot this fall, as a lawsuit against the state ballot board for the abortion rights amendment as a single issue waits for a court date.

And with that suit, the state’s high court could hold the power to make a decision that could keep the amendment from going to voters this November.

Curt Hartman, the Cincinnati attorney who filed the lawsuit for two private citizens from southwest Ohio, said he’s asking the state’s highest court to require the Ballot Board to reverse its decision and revisit the issue.

“We believe that it clearly should be separated into abortion or decisions relating to deciding whether to terminate a pregnancy on one hand versus all of these other reproductive decisions,” Hartman said.

Freda Levenson is the legal director of the ACLU of Ohio, which is working with the reproductive rights amendment’s backers. She said the lawsuit lacks merit.

See also NBC News, The Next Battleground Over Abortion