SW News: The Supreme Court of the US state of Ohio is being urged by 18 other states to remove the temporary block on the abortion ban issued by a lower court. Led by Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch, a brief was filed at the Supreme Court to lift the prohibition on enforcing the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The 20-page amicus brief was submitted urging the court to reject the challenge to Ohio’s Heartbeat Act.

Republican Attorney General Dave Yost hopes that the state apex court will defend the lives of the unborn. The attorneys general from Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia submitted the brief.

In the brief, the attorneys general stated that the “Court should hold that abortion providers lack third-party standing to challenge laws regulating or restricting abortions, like the Heartbeat Act challenged here.”

Last year, a Hamilton County court ordered a temporary injunction against the law for the duration of the case in which its constitutionality will be argued. The proposed Ohio abortion ban protects unborn children by prohibiting doctors from ending their lives once the heartbeat is detected.

Following the overturn of Roe v Wade in June last year, the courts can use typical standards to decide the cases, which include legal standing. These will do with whether someone has the right to file a lawsuit, and according to the states, abortion clinics do not have the right in Ohio’s case. “Abortion providers often do not even know these women. Instead, they commonly seek to sue on behalf of unknown women who may, in the future, come to them seeking abortions. And for the women they do know, the women’s relationship with abortion providers is usually ‘brief,’ shallow, and transactional: often just minutes long,” the brief stated.