Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and supporters of the proposed amendment each submitted briefs to the Supreme Court on Monday.
File photo/The Lima News
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A lawsuit challenging the abortion rights constitutional amendment proposal should be expedited in the Ohio Supreme Court, according to briefs filed late Monday afternoon by both backers of the proposed amendment and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who opposes it.
LaRose and supporters of the proposed amendment each submitted briefs to the Supreme Court, supporting a request by the two Southwest Ohioans who filed the lawsuit that the case be expedited, as well as addressing the overall arguments of the suit, filed Friday. LaRose and the backers, in their responses to the overall suit, didn’t present many counter arguments but stated they each reserved the right to add additional defenses during court proceedings.
Time may be of the essence.
Last week, LaRose, a Republican who personally opposes abortion rights, told Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights that it obtained enough signatures of registered voters for the amendment they’re backing to qualify for the Nov. 7 election.
By Friday, Jennifer Giroux and Thomas Brinkman had sued, saying that the amendment’s petition didn’t specify which state laws would be altered if voters passed it. They cited some of the abortion laws that the legislature has passed over the years that would be affected, such as one banning an abortion when a fetal heart tone is detected – a law currently being challenged in a lawsuit before the Ohio Supreme Court – and others covering the fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome and parental consent on abortions.
LaRose, in one of his responses, noted that Cincinnati attorney Curt C. Hartman represented a different group of Southeast Ohio residents in an earlier challenge against the abortion rights amendment that the Ohio Supreme Court ultimately rejected. The issues raised in Friday’s lawsuit could have been brought up earlier, LaRose argued.
“… Relators’ Complaint raises issues that could have been raised long before July 28, 2023,” LaRose told the court. “Relators’ own Complaint indicates that the Ohio Ballot Board issued a certification letter on the Initiative Petition on March 13, 2023.”
LaRose “asks this Court to resolve this matter as expeditiously as possible in order to provide direction to the parties with respect to Relators’ claims, so Respondent Secretary of State can proceed to prepare for the November 7, 2023 election,” he said in one of his responses.
The petition backers argued in a response Monday that Giroux and Brinkman don’t articulate a claim on which they can be granted relief. The petition backers also said that the Cincinnati-area residents “do not have a clear legal right to their requested relief.”
Ohio’s proposed abortion amendment would generally allow women to make their own abortion, birth control and other reproductive health decisions until viability. This would protect women from the laws supported by politicians such as Yost, Gov. Mike DeWine and Republicans who control the General Assembly.
