© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Ohio ACLU Seeks to Permanently Block Heartbeat Abortion Law

photo of gavel
ELVIRA KONEVA
/
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Proponents of the abortion ban hope it makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ACLU of Ohio is asking a federal court to permanently block a ban on abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Pro-choice advocates had secured an order to temporarily stop the so called "heartbeat law" from going into effect as planned in July. 

Freda Levenson, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, says the federal court blocked the ban from going into effect in July. And she says the state hasn’t fought that.

"The state had an opportunity to appeal that ruling but it let the date to file an appeal come and go without doing anything."

So Levenson says her group is asking the court to permanently block the law, as has happened in some other states. When asked why the Ohio Attorney General’s office didn’t appeal, it replied with a written statement saying, "Our office will defend Ohio’s laws." Backers of the ban have said they hope it will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.