At the end of last year, former Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law that bans a surgical procedure most commonly used in second trimester abortions. Now a federal court is blocking part of that new law from going into effect.
U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett has ruled the state cannot fully enforce that bans dilation and extraction, the common method of abortion used about 15 weeks of pregnancy and beyond. In his ruling, Barrett says the state cannot enforce the law at all against doctors who perform the procedure on a woman who is less than 18 weeks pregnant. At that point, Barrett says part of the new law that requires doctors to take an action to cause fetal demise before conducting the procedure can be applied in certain circumstances. It is important to note this ruling is only temporary right now until a trial over the new law is heard in a few months.
