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Ohio Flag FILE PHOTO

(Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer)

The ongoing struggle over the fate of abortion clinics in Ohio highlights the truth that, for the last few years, Ohio has become a laboratory for how to thwart the exercise of a constitutional right to which women are entitled, as affirmed by the Supreme Court.

Make no mistake – the restrictions promoted by Gov. John Kasich and enacted by the Ohio legislature are not about women's health, but about ending access to safe and legal abortions and imposing one religious view of abortion and women's autonomy on everyone in the state.

The backdrop for the constitutional guarantee of Roe v. Wade was an appalling rate of injurious medical consequences and even death for women who obtained illegal underground abortions. Such procedures caused 17 percent of all deaths due to pregnancy and childbirth in 1965. In contrast, today, abortion is one of the safest medical procedures; women experience complications much less than one percent of the time. We all want to protect women's health and safety, but Ohio's restrictions are not about maternal health.

Roe also held that the right of privacy recognized in a previous case (Griswold v. Connecticut) "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy," subject only to certain qualifications related to the stage of pregnancy.

Contrast that with Ohio's abortion restrictions. Our state requires that a woman receive in-person, state-directed counseling, be offered the option of viewing an ultrasound of her pregnancy and wait 24 hours before a requested abortion. Does that honor Roe's definition of a woman's right to privacy?

In addition, by Ohio law, health insurance plans offered in the state under the Affordable Care Act can only cover abortion in cases of rape or incest, or when the woman's life (not just health) is endangered. When such morally directed restrictions are in place, what sort of agency do we afford the women of Ohio?

In Roe, Justice Harry Blackmun cited Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote that the Constitution "is made for people of fundamentally differing views." Blackmun also noted that the court's duty was to "resolve the issue [of abortion] by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection."

That has not been the choice of the Ohio legislature. A particularly religious view of abortion is now enshrined in state law. Women who hold the view that the decision about ending a pregnancy is their own to determine, based on their own moral, religious, and/or ethical beliefs and circumstances, are told that Ohio politicians know better.

This view has a history. Women were once thought not to have the moral or intellectual capacity to vote, to work in certain professions, to own and dispose of their own property if married, or even to keep custody of their children if divorced. Now we all believe otherwise, but it is important to put the debate over abortion back into the context of evolving views about gender that were finally decided in favor of women's equality.

For women to be able to make decisions about reproductive matters is a fundamental tenet of many religious denominations. To the extent that Ohio's regulation of abortion adopts one religious view, it violates the spirit of the separation of religion and state found in the First Amendment that is the basis of our nation's respect for individual rights, including the rights of women. Indeed, the goal of Ohio's abortion opponents is to end the ability of Ohio women to obtain abortion services.

We cannot let that happen. It is time for Congress to step in to provide the federal protection women need to exercise their constitutional right under Roe. The rest of Ohio's delegation should join with Sen. Sherrod Brown and U.S. Reps. Marcia Fudge, Joyce Beatty and Tim Ryan in supporting the Women's Health Protection Act. This federal legislation would protect against state laws that target the provision of abortion with restrictions that don't apply to similar medical facilities. We cannot let politicians drive abortion back underground, back to a time when our moral agency was ignored and when seeking an abortion put our lives at risk.

Debbie Hoffmann, of Cleveland, is president of the National Council of Jewish Women.