The Ohio Department of Health paid little respect to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. It revoked the operating license of the only remaining abortion clinic in Dayton. Officials explained that the clinic failed to obtain a required transfer agreement with a local hospital to cover emergency care.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed and strengthened abortion rights in striking down a Texas law that applied similar restrictions, requiring clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals and abortion clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers. The court majority found that such requirements were more about placing an “undue burden” on abortion rights than ensuring patient safety.
A month later, the Sixth District Ohio Court of Appeals in Toledo cited the high court in ruling that the state requirement for transfer agreements poses an unconstitutional barrier.
None of this has stopped the state Health Department from pursuing the course of Gov. John Kasich and Statehouse Republicans. They have spent recent years erecting an array of obstacles, including requiring a woman to receive an ultrasound and listen to the fetal heartbeat. Mike DeWine, the state attorney general, has chosen to appeal the Sixth District decision.
In its rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has made room for regulating abortion rights. What the court rejected is using patient safety as a cover for unreasonably narrowing access.
Transfer agreements fit the profile of such narrowing. If there is a emergency, nearby hospitals are not going to turn away patients needing immediate help. More, lawmakers took the revealing step of barring public hospitals from participating in transfer agreements with clinics.
The Dayton clinic has been unable to gain such an arrangement. It has sought variances from the state, showing that it had two obstetricians available as backups. The state upped the requirement to three. When the clinic gained a third, the number became four. The arbitrariness alone exposes the real intent of the regulation.
Now the department has pulled the clinic’s license. If the decision holds, Dayton will be without an abortion clinic, the number across the state declining from 14 to eight in recent years.
That is the aim of the governor and state lawmakers: End legal abortion access, as they neglect the problems that would follow.
Then, on Tuesday, Senate Republicans suddenly advanced the controversial “heartbeat” bill, folding the measure into child abuse reporting legislation. The amendment bars abortions after six weeks, or before many women even know they are pregnant. The House concurred, and the bill is headed to the governor’s desk.
The governor should use his line-item veto. If he does not, Ohio will have one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, similar measures elsewhere already overturned. Keith Faber, the Senate president, justified the step as part of anticipating a Donald Trump presidency and possible change in the outlook of the Supreme Court. Actually, the move smacks of Faber, his eye on statewide office, playing to potential supporters.
Better to respect how the court has ruled, protecting the right to an abortion, rejecting such ploys as transfer agreements and leaving no room for something as severe as the “heartbeat” bill.