Last week, the A.P. reported a judge in Ohio ruled a law requiring aborted babies to be respectfully buried or cremated violates the state constitution.
In 2023, Ohio voters passed an amendment enshrining abortion in the state constitution. Since then, the ACLU and other pro-abortion groups have filed lawsuits claiming virtually all of Ohio’s laws related to abortion — including informed-consent requirements and medical licensing laws — are unconstitutional.
Ohio’s legislature passed a law five years ago ensuring aborted babies would be respectfully buried or cremated. Laws like these do not restrict or prohibit abortion. They simply outline how aborted babies are supposed to be treated.
Without laws like these, abortionists may sell an aborted baby’s organs to medical researchers or simply incinerate the baby’s remains as if they were medical waste.
The story is a sobering reminder of what happens when states write abortion into their constitutions. Not only is Ohio’s abortion amendment preventing the state from enacting common-sense abortion regulations, but the state can’t even ensure that the bodies of aborted babies are treated with respect.
All of this should concern Arkansas, where pro-abortion groups worked unsuccessfully to place an abortion amendment on the 2024 ballot.
In 2017, the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 603 by then-Rep. Kim Hammer (R — Benton). This good law ensured aborted babies in Arkansas would be respectfully buried or cremated rather than incinerated or sold to research companies.
In response, the ACLU filed a lawsuit to block Act 603 in Arkansas. That case languished in federal court until the ACLU finally dropped the lawsuit following the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Today, abortion in Arkansas is prohibited except to save the life of the mother. And thanks to Act 603 by Rep. Hammer, if an abortion is necessary to save the mother’s life, Arkansas’ law ensures the aborted baby’s body is treated with the same level of respect we show to other human bodies.
If abortion were written into the state constitution, it could jeopardize even very basic requirements for abortionists — including laws like Act 603 that treat aborted babies with dignity.
That’s a very troubling thought.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
