Ohio sues to close Toledo’s last abortion facility

The Ohio Department of Health has filed an appeal in hopes that the Ohio Supreme Court will reverse the 6th District Court of Appeals’ July decision that kept Toledo’s last abortion facility open.

In 2014, state officials ordered Capital Care Network to shut down its Toledo surgical center for lacking a ambulatory transfer agreement with a local hospital. The facility sued, arguing the shutdown order would impose an “undue burden” on the “right” to abortion.

Capital Care Network attempted to argue its transfer agreement with the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor sufficed, but the Michigan facility did not qualify as local.

Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Myron Duhart agreed that closing the facility would impose an “undue burden” on abortion seekers. The 6th District ruling upheld that decision, deeming the need for the transfer requirement “nonexistent” as “the need has not arisen [at Capital Care] in the past 12 years.”

However, the importance of a given regulation is normally a value judgment reserved to government’s elected branches, rather than judges charged with merely applying the law. Further, Live Action News has covered many instances nationwide of women being rushed to hospitals after botched abortions.

“If this were any other sector of the health care industry, people would be demanding the highest standards of care for the women walking into this facility, and rightly so,” Ohio Right to Life executive director Devin Scribner said in a statement. “We strongly reject the notion that the abortion industry should be given a free pass, and we applaud the Attorney General for ensuring that Ohio’s law is applied neutrally and fairly for the women of Ohio.”