COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal court in Cincinnati will hear complex legal arguments for and against Ohio's Down syndrome abortion ban Wednesday.
The case is viewed as pivotal in the national debate over the procedure. The Ohio law, worked on by Reps. Stephen A. Huffman, Sarah LaTourette and Derek Merrin, prohibits physicians from performing an abortion if they're aware that a diagnosis of Down syndrome, or the possibility, is influencing the decision. The summary of the law can be viewed here.
The government will argue before the full U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati that the sidelined 2017 law doesn't actually ban any abortions. They say it impedes doctors, not pregnant women.
A group of mothers whose children have Down syndrome argues the so-called Down Syndrome Non-Discrimination Act actually discriminates against their children, singling out their fetal anomaly over many others in order to politicize the issue.
Doctors who defy the ban would face a fourth-degree felony charge, be stripped of their medical license and be held liable for legal damages. The pregnant woman faces no criminal liability under the law.
According to the bill language, "The bill does not specifically prohibit the act of aborting unborn children with Down syndrome. Rather, it looks at why the mother desires an abortion and whether the person who will perform the abortion knows the mother's reasons."