Lawyers, abortion advocates prepare for ‘sea change’ from Roe v. Wade decision

The leak of a draft opinion appearing to spell drastic changes to abortion legalization in the country has caused many Ohio abortion advocates to accept what they’d been expecting for months.

Roe v. Wade may be overturned this summer by the U.S. Supreme Court, and rather than deny what they’ve anticipated since the court took up anti-abortion legislation in a number of states, Dr. Jessie Hill of Case Western Reserve University said a more realistic tack is necessary.

“I believe lawyers as well as providers and others have been preparing for this across the board,” Hill said. “The fight is not over, there are certainly going to be efforts to maintain the rights (laid out in Roe).”

Hill is associate dean for research and faculty development at CWRU’s school of law, works with the ACLU on abortion rights cases, and teaches classes on constitutional law, civil rights and reproductive rights.

Though Hill says Ohioans are still due their abortion rights within the state until a decision is made official – abortion is legal in Ohio up to 20 weeks gestation and 9 abortion clinics are still open in the state – the changes that are indicated in the draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito create more questions than answers.

“It’s a huge sea-change; it would be hard to overstate how much uncertainty this brings about,” Hill said.

Jaime Miracle, deputy director of Pro-Choice Ohio, said that’s one of the organizations’ biggest concerns with the potential for impending restrictions, nationally and on the state level.

“They want to ban abortion, but how are we going to support all these folks?” Miracle said. “If we do lose abortion access, how are these legislators going to do to support families?”

Researchers with the Ohio Policy Evaluation Network, a collaborative from Ohio State University who focuses on reproductive health, also said the priority should be on care instead of restrictions.

“If Ohio policymakers want to ensure the health and well-being of their constituents, they should not ban abortion care in Ohio,” the group said in a statement. “Instead, motivated by evidence and attention to equity, they should turn their efforts to expanding access to reproductive healthcare.”

While Ohio’s general assemblies have done a lot of work to regulate abortion clinics and methods, “pregnancy resource centers” or “crisis pregnancy centers,” which promote pregnancy and do not provide abortion information, have been provided funds in sources such as the state’s latest operating budget.