Ohio AG joins coalition seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade

COLUMBUS — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has joined a coalition of 23 other states in a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The brief, filed in a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, asserts the court is unable to explain the constitutional source of a right to abortion, or even a consistent legal standard for determining when it is violated by a state law.

"The jurisprudence of abortion has become like the 1960s fights over pornography — no one can say exactly what's allowed and what's not," Yost said in a news release. "It's like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: 'I know it when I see it.'

"It's time to end this failed experiment in judicial lawmaking and return the matter to the states," Yost said.

The Constitution says nothing about abortion, and until Roe was decided in 1973, it was generally regulated by state law, Yost said.

This story was originally published July 30, 2021 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Ohio AG joins coalition seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade."