A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio [official website] on Friday blocked [order, PDF] the diversion of public funds from Planned Parenthood clinics across Ohio. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood of the Southwest Ohio Region filed motions for permanent injunction and a judgment on the merits to prevent the enforcement of Ohio Revised Code Section 3701.34, which would have precluded the distribution of federal funds from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) to any entity that performs or promotes non-therapeutic abortions. Plaintiffs operate only three clinics [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report] providing abortion services in Ohio, and have received federal funds from ODH for a number of years passing all state and local audits and program reviews. Acknowledging the state’s argument that the legislature has “wide latitude in choosing among competing demands for limited public funds,” Judge Michael Barrett stated that “this wide latitude to set spending priorities exists ‘[s]o long as legislation does not infringe on other constitutionally protected rights.'” Ohio’s Attorney General Mike DeWine [official website] plans to appeal the decision.

Abortion in general continues to be a highly controversial subject in the US. Last month the Alaska Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the state’s parental “notification law” requiring doctors to inform the parents of minors seeking an abortion is unconstitutional, and cannot be enforced. Earlier the same month a US district judge issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] against a law intended to cut state funding to clinics administering abortions. Also in July a federal judge placed an injunction [JURIST report] on an Indiana law that would have banned women from seeking abortion procedures when they are based on race, sex, or the potential for or actual diagnosis of a disability in the fetus. Recently the US Supreme Court ruled [opinion, PDF] that a Texas law [HB2 text] imposing certain requirements on abortion clinics and doctors creates an undue burden on access to abortion, and is therefore unconstitutional [JURIST report]. A collection of Texas abortion providers challenged provisions of HB2 requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and requiring abortion clinics to conform to state standards for ambulatory surgical centers on the grounds that such requirements violated the Fourteenth Amendment as interpreted by the Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey [text]. The Indiana statute contained a similar “admitting privilege” provision.