Region reacts to Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade

Jun. 24—The Supreme Court ended the constitutional protections of a woman's ability to get an abortion after a 6-3 decision following party lines; thus handing total legislative control of abortion over to states.

Ohio has made several legislative steps in recent years to further restrict abortion access, including the passage of a 2019 "heartbeat bill" that was eventually blocked due to Roe v. Wade's federal precedent.

Among the Ohio public, adults are almost evenly split, with 48 percent of polled Ohioans generally supporting abortion rights and 47 percent generally opposing, according to PEW Research Center. Fifty percent of Ohio women generally support abortion rights while 45 percent generally oppose.

Former Ohio. Rep. Candice Keller, executive director of the Community Pregnancy Center in Middletown and a proponent of Ohio's heartbeat bill, said she was "absolutely beyond excited" when she learned the news. She told the Journal-News that she was in a grocery store parking lot this morning when she started crying, and those tears continued in the store.

I still can't believe it," Keller said. "People are tired of killing the unborn."

Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio said in a statement this decision will force Ohioans to leave the state for abortion access.

"By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has now officially given politicians permission to control what we do with our bodies, deciding that we can no longer be trusted to determine the course for our own lives," the organization said.

The most recent abortion data collected by the Ohio Department of Health shows that official induced-abortion frequency in the state has generally been trending downward for decades.

In 2020 — the most recent year on record — there were just under 20,000 official Ohio induced abortions, compared to a high of over 45,000 induced abortions in 1981.

In the region, Butler County had 545 official induced abortions in 2020, along with Hamilton (2,345); Montgomery (1,292); Warren (174); Greene (173) and Preble (15).

The report showed that 0.5 percent of Ohio abortions occurred after 20 weeks of gestation, while the percentage of abortions occuring in the first nine weeks of gestation trended upward.

Today's overturn would allow Ohio's 2019 heartbeat bill to take effect, which would effectively fully restrict women from getting an abortion after an average of five to six weeks of gestation.

In 2020, 61.8% of all Ohio abortions occurred before nine weeks of gestation, the lowest time frame tracked by the ODH.