Ohio city rewrites abortion ban, advocacy groups end lawsuit

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Groups advocating for professional social workers and abortion rights said they have succeeded in forcing a small Ohio city to significantly narrow its ban on conducting or recommending abortions and so have ended their legal challenge.

The lawsuit by the National Association of Social Workers and the Abortion Fund of Ohio argued that the law, passed in May 2021, represented an “extraordinarily broad” infringement on the constitutional rights of due process and free speech. The groups' lawyers at the ACLU of Ohio and Democracy Forward further alleged the ban violated Ohio’s home-rule provisions.

The city of Lebanon, in southwest Ohio, opted to revise the law rather than defend it in court. Enforcement had been placed on hold while that work took place.

Opponents said they dropped their lawsuit Jan. 12 after provisions were removed that made aiding and abetting an abortion a crime, and the law was further clarified to assure providing transportation, instructions, money or “abortion doula” services, including counseling, were still allowed.

Lebanon’s ban was one of four that cropped up around Ohio in 2021, part of a national effort to ban abortion “one city at a time” by the Texas-based Sanctuary Cities of the Unborn organization overseen by Mark Lee Dickson.

It was the first local ban to be challenged nationally after a leak revealed the U.S. Supreme Court planned to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.

“This litigation exposes local ordinance bans as dangerous acts of political theater, and our lawsuit demanded accountability for the logistical and legal nightmare Lebanon’s City Council created," Maggie Scotece, interim executive director of the abortion fund, formerly Women Have Options-Ohio, said in a statement. "This...