Judge Blocks Ohio Abortion Law

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Ohio's ban on a late-term abortion procedure.

U.S. District Judge Walter Rice's 10-day order takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday and blocks the law setting penalties for physicians who perform the procedure.

Dr. Martin Haskell, owner of Women's Medical Professional Corp., which operates clinics in Dayton, Cincinnati and Akron, challenged the law in a suit filed July 27. Haskell requested the judge's order.

State officials said they had anticipated Rice's decision.

"The governor still supports the law and will vigorously defend it through the Attorney General's Office," said Mary Anne Sharkey, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bob Taft.

Rice has scheduled a Sept. 5 hearing on whether to extend the order.

In May, Taft signed a bill that makes a crime of what it termed "partial-birth feticide." Under the law, violators could be sentenced to eight years in prison and face $15,000 in fines.

Haskell's suit says the law is unconstitutional because it imposes an undue burden on the right of women to choose abortion. It also says the law is vague - failing to warn doctors about which procedures are made criminal - and susceptible to arbitrary enforcement.

The Atorney General's Office defends the law as constitutional. The state is prepared to fight the lawsuit in court, attorney general spokesman Todd Boyer said.

The procedure in question, known medically as dilation and extraction, is done in the last three months of a pregnancy. A doctor drains the skull before the fetus is fully delivered. (Opponents refer to the procedure as "partial birth" abortion.)

Haskell's lawsuit said the law makes no exception even if the doctor believes the procedure is the safest or most medically appropriate.

His lawsuit names Taft, Attorney General Betty Montgomery and Montgomery County prosecutor Mathias Heck Jr. as defendants.

The law represents the state's second attempt to prohibit the abortion procedure.

A federal judge declared the legislature's previous ban unconstitutional in 1995. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.