Magnolia State News

(Jackson, Mississippi) Attorney General Lynn Fitch On May 8  led a coalition of18 states in filing an amicus brief in Preterm Cleveland v Ohio in the Supreme Court of Ohio, urging the court to reject the challenge to Ohio’s Heartbeat Act and uphold the will of the people. 

“In Dobbs, the Supreme Court returned important policy making to the people and their elected officials,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “The Court set aside decades of special rules that had been created to circumvent longstanding principles of neutrality in order to validate Roe v Wade at any cost, rules that had done great damage to the Court and to the law. We urge the Ohio Supreme Court to not make those same mistakes and instead follow the lead of the Dobbs Court to give effect to the will of the people of Ohio.” 

In the brief, the Attorneys General note that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized in Dobbs “that Roe did not just get the U.S. Constitution wrong but also‘ distort[ed]’ ‘important’ legal rules” and “counted this decades-long distortion of basic legal rules as a strong reason to overrule Roe and set the law right.

”The Attorneys General continue, “But as abortion disputes have, after Dobbs, returned to the States, state courts have been urged to continue distorting the law to protect abortion.

”In the brief, the Attorneys General explain that granting abortion providers standing “departed from sound principles of standing, damaged the law, and hurt the Court. There is no good reason for this Court to engraft those problems onto Ohio law and to bring that harm to this State’s courts.” 

In the brief, the Attorneys General warn, “Nothing could be more damaging toa court than a jurisprudence that is at war with the demand to act based on neutral principles.” 

The Attorneys General conclude that the Court should “hold that abortion providers lack third-party standing to challenge laws regulating or restricting abortions, like the Heartbeat Act challenged here.

”Attorneys General from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia joined Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch on this brief. 

Read the brief here.

Original source can be found here