A federal appeals court had vacated a decision by a panel of its judges overturning blocking Ohio from protecting unborn babies with Down syndrome from discriminatory abortions. The decision gives new life to the abortion ban and hope to babies with Down syndrome that they will not be victimized in abortions just because they have an extra chromosome.
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.
In October, 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.”
But today, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request for a full-court rehearing of the case — meaning Ohio has another chance to defend the law in court. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost had asked the full court to rehear the case after the panel ruling.
Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life,says unborn babies with Down syndrome should be protected from abortions.
“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 in the panel decision were appointed by pro-abortion Democrat presidents.
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“The state’s interest in preventing discrimination does not become compelling until viability,” Judge Bernice Bouie Donald wrote in October. 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.
Judge Alice Moore Batchelder, who dissented then, 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.
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.”
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.
