Federal Court Blocks Ohio Law Banning Abortions on Babies With Down Syndrome

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Oct 11, 2019   |   7:43PM   |   Columbus, Ohio

An appeals court panel upheld a ruling Friday blocking Ohio from protecting unborn babies with Down syndrome from discriminatory abortions.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 against the pro-life law, arguing that its enforcement would block “access to constitutionally protected health care services.”

The 2017 law prohibits abortions that are performed specifically because an unborn baby has been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state, and a judge with close ties to Planned Parenthood blocked it last year.

Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life, expressed sadness at the decision. She urged the state attorney general’s office to appeal.

“Unborn persons with Down Syndrome deserve the same protections afforded to those already born through the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Krider said. “We also pray that the time may come sooner than later that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe and allow states to settle in law what we already know to be true: An unborn human is as deserving of human rights as any other already born.”

The Sixth Circuit judges who ruled against the law were appointed by pro-abortion Democrat presidents.

“The state’s interest in preventing discrimination does not become compelling until viability,” Judge Bernice Bouie Donald wrote in the decision Friday. She was appointed by President Barack Obama.

Chief Circuit Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., an appointee of President Bill Clinton, joined her in the ruling, according to the report.

Judge Alice Moore Batchelder, who dissented, was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush. She argued that the law should be upheld to prevent the deliberate targeting of children with disabilities.

“Ohio concluded that permitting physicians to become witting accomplices to the deliberate targeting of Down syndrome babies would undermine the principle that the Down syndrome population is equal in value and dignity to the rest of Ohio’s population,” she wrote.

Click Like if you are pro-life to like the LifeNews Facebook page!

According to Reuters, Batchelder also quoted U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in May about a similar Indiana law. Thomas wrote that states have a “compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics.”

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, celebrated the ruling as a “victory” for women.

“The Sixth Circuit just upheld a preliminary injunction against an unconstitutional law that criminalizes abortion when one of the patient’s reasons for the abortion is a fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome,” the pro-abortion legal group wrote on Twitter.

Lately, prominent pro-abortion groups, including NARAL and Planned Parenthood, have been arguing openly that abortions are ok for any reason, including discrimination.

EVERY reason to have an abortion is a valid reason,” Colleen McNicholas, a Planned Parenthood abortionist, told the AP in reaction to a Missouri law that bans sex-selection and Down syndrome-based abortions.

Unborn babies with Down syndrome are targeted for abortions at astronomical rates.

A recent CBS News report shocked the nation with its exposure of the discriminatory abortion trend. According to the report, nearly 100 percent of unborn babies who test positive for Down syndrome are aborted in Iceland. The rate in France was 77 percent in 2015, 90 percent in the United Kingdom and 67 percent in the United States between 1995 and 2011, according to CBS.

North Dakota, Missouri and Indiana also passed laws to protect unborn babies with Down syndrome from discriminatory abortions. However, in May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to lift a block on the Indiana law. A judge also recently blocked the Missouri law.