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A constitutional right to an abortion means a right to have one for any reason. That should also mean a woman can elect to tell her doctor — or not — why she wants an abortion.
But that’s not what is happening in Ohio, where the state Legislature in 2017 passed a ban on doctors performing abortions when they know the woman is seeking one because her fetus has been diagnosed with Down syndrome or is suspected of having it. The law also made it a felony for doctors to defy the law.
That measure is just one of hundreds of unjustified restrictions that state legislatures have passed in the last decade to curtail a woman’s right to an abortion up to the point when a fetus is viable outside a woman’s body (roughly 24 weeks into a pregnancy). The Supreme Court guaranteed that right nearly 50 years ago in the landmark case of Roe vs. Wade and has upheld it multiple times since then.