NEWS

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval

PHOTO: MARY LEBUS

Cincinnati Develops New Policies to Support City Employees Seeking Abortion, Other Healthcare

“It is not my job to make it easier for the state legislature and the governor to drag women in Ohio back to the ‘50s,” Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said.

BY ALLISON BABKA

In light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 reversal of the privacy and bodily autonomy that Roe v. Wade had granted for nearly 50 years, Cincinnati o cials are in the process of developing new policies to support employees who seek abortions and other healthcare.

During a June 27 press conference, mayor Aftab Pureval announced that interim city manager John Curp is advancing a change in the city’s health coverage plan and human resource policies that would protect employees seeking healthcare and would reimburse employees for out-of-state travel costs related to those procedures.

During the address, Pureval repeatedly and speci cally mentioned “women” and abortion, but he, Curp and other council members also alluded to and sometimes speci cally mentioned protecting all healthcare, including gender-a rming care. CityBeat has requested clari cation and comment from the mayor’s o ce.

“Our Supreme Court, Congress, our governor, state legislature – they have all failed us,” Pureval said. “It is not my job to make it easier for the state legislature and the governor to drag women in Ohio back to the ‘50s and strip their rights. It’s my job to make that harder.”

As of press time, Pureval is introducing legislation that would repeal a 2001 ordinance restricting the city from covering elective abortions in its health plan. Cincinnati City Council is expected to vote on it during the June 29 meeting, he said. If it passes, Curp will amend Cincinnati’s healthcare coverage to include abortion services.

Curp also will introduce “a comprehensive travel reimbursement policy,” Pureval said. Under the new policy, employees would receive reimbursement for travel for healthcare if that care is not covered under the city’s health plan and is unavailable or restricted within 150 miles of Cincinnati. After the reversal of Roe on June 24, Ohio banned abortion after six weeks gestation except in a handful of circumstances. ere are no exceptions in cases of rape or incest, and doctors performing abortions can be charged with a fth-degree felony.

Pureval noted that the city’s reimbursement plan for reproductive healthcare would be similar to those of Cincinnati-based Kroger and other corporations. Curp added that the policy will cover abortion, birth control options, in vitro fertilization and care for transgender individuals and that the cost to the city would be similar to policies elsewhere.

“I also want to be clear that the city’s travel reimbursement policy will not only cover travel for abortion-related

services. is is about helping to make sure our city employees have access to any eligible medical care that isn’t available here regardless of future statewide laws,” Pureval said.

Pureval also said he has asked city administration to provide a report within 30 days with ways the city can decriminalize abortions as Ohio and other states begin to further restrict or even entirely outlaw abortion care. He has instructed the Cincinnati Police Department not to pursue residents who seek abortions or health providers like doctors and nurses who perform abortion-related care.

“We are relying on our administration and our legal department to provide us with the best possible advice to take actions that are protected from overreach by the state legislature. But as we’ve seen with other issues [that have] come before City Hall, this state legislature, despite its commitment to local power, has overreached again and again,” Pureval said. “We anticipate that they will do everything they can to disrupt our e ort, but that will not deter us from ghting as hard as we can to protect the women in our communities.”

Cincinnati leaders speak out against Roe v. Wade reversal

As many of them did once the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Cincinnati City Council members lambasted the court’s decision and feared what it could mean in the months and years ahead.

“Back in the 1800s, abortions were legal for white women. ey were not legal for enslaved women because enslaved women were considered property,” said Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, vice mayor. “But we grew up in a di erent America. We grew up in an America where the fundamental right to liberty wasn’t just for straight white men. Liberty means that we own our own bodies.”

“Personal testimony here: I’ve known people who have gotten abortions. I personally have had to make that choice in my life, too. And, so, I know the power of what choosing means,” Cincinnati City Council member Meeka Owens said.

Victoria Parks, pro tem president of the council, had especially strong words for the U.S. Supreme Court, saying that in her lifetime, the legislation around civil rights, Title IX and abortion have a ected her the most.

“I’m really not that old, but the right for women to make a choice about their own bodies happened in my life[time], and I grieve – I grieve – that this Supreme Court has the audacity to try to interfere in a woman’s right to choose what she wants to do. ey don’t care about rape. ey don’t care about the health of the woman,” Parks said. “Within my power, everything that I can do, I will ght against this kind of tyranny.”

Kearney added thoughts about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence omas, who called for reviews of other recent court-granted rights.

“I am ashamed of our U.S. Supreme Court. I am especially ashamed of Justice Clarence omas and his concurring opinion, and I hope everyone has read it. He said, ‘We haven’t gone far enough in Roe v. Wade; we need to take away other liberties that are fundamental rights. Let’s look at Griswold and take away the right for married couples to have contraceptives. Let’s look at Lawrence and take away that right to have privacy between consenting adults. Let’s look at Obergefell and take away the right to gay marriage.”

In his concurring opinion, omas wrote, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” Legal experts as well as civil and human rights activists have long said that reversing Roe could set the stage for reversing other rights. e rights and the major court cases granting them include: e right to obtain contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965) e right to interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia, 1967) e right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003) e right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015)

“Now, he didn’t mention Loving, the right to interracial marriage, which was passed six years before Roe, because of course that would hurt his own self interest,” Kearney noted. omas, who is Black, is married to Virginia “Ginni” omas, a white woman who is being investigated for pressuring lawmakers to help overturn the 2020 general election in which current U.S. President Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump. Trump’s false claims that he had won the election – not Biden – helped spark the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, investigators are nding. e interracial marriage between Clarence and Virginia omas would have been outlawed without the decision from Loving v. Virginia.

Curp said that the state eventually may pursue a lawsuit against Cincinnati for providing protections for its employees.

“As the former solicitor, I always expect a lawsuit when the city takes bold action, the same way that we did in Obergefell a decade ago,” Curp said. “I was there for that ght, and we’ll stand for that here for as long as we can.”

Abortion-ban protesters demonstrate in Cincinnati.

PHOTO: MARY LEBUS

State Abortion Bans Go into Effect

BY MAIJA ZUMMO

The federal overturning of Roe v. Wade prompted a urry of activity in Ohio and Kentucky regarding the implementation of each state’s restrictive abortion bans.

Ohio

Less than an hour after it was announced that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost led a motion to lift an injunction against Ohio’s “heartbeat bill.” By that evening, the bill — o cially called the “Human Rights and Heartbeat Protection Act” — became law. e law bans abortions in Ohio after six weeks of gestation and requires physicians to determine if there is detectable “heartbeat pulse before moving forward (doctors say this is not an actual heartbeat). If so, the doctor cannot conduct an abortion unless it is “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” e law contains no exceptions for rape or incest and only applies to what the state describes as “intrauterine pregnancies.”

Physicians are required to record and report the medical condition necessitating each patient’s abortion as well as the “medical rationale” behind their decision. at documentation must be kept by the doctor for at least seven years.

Pregnant people also are required to sign a form acknowledging the presence of a fetal heartbeat and the statistical probability the fetus could be carried to term.

Doctors who perform an abortion in violation of the law can be charged with a fth-degree felony, punishable by up to a year in prison. e ACLU of Ohio says it will sue the state “to block the six-week ban.”

Kentucky

In Kentucky, the Roe reversal spurred the immediate enactment of a so-called abortion “trigger law.” e law bans all abortions in the state, regardless of gestation, except in order to prevent the death of or “the serious, permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ” of a pregnant person. It also criminalizes procuring, prescribing, administering or selling any medication with the intent to terminate a pregnancy.

Physicians also must make “reasonable medical e orts under the circumstances” to preserve the life of the fetus.

Under the law, anyone who performs an abortion or provides abortive medications can be charged with a Class D felony, which is punishable by up to ve years in prison. e law does not provide exceptions for cases of rape or incest, which Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has called “extremist” and “wrong.”