TOLEDO - The only abortion clinic remaining in Toledo will be able to resume surgical abortions after its license was restored. The decision follows a long battle over transfer agreement requirements that lawmakers and Gov. John Kasich's administration imposed on abortion clinics.

A Promedica hospital in Toledo provided Capital Care Network with a signed transfer agreement days after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the clinic's legal challenge to state laws that require abortion clinics to have an agreement with a hospital willing to accept transfer patients.

While abortion foes say the agreements are needed to ensure care for patients, clinic operators say federal laws require hospitals to accept emergency transfer patients even if there's no agreement in place, and the agreements are just an effort to obstruct their operations.

Because its old license was revoked with the court decision, Capital Care Network had to file for a new license from the state, which was issued on May 8, 2018, according to NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. A separate legal challenge of the transfer agreement policy is in federal court.

"Twenty thousand Ohioans rely on abortion providers each year," said a statement from the organization's president, Kellie Copeland. "Closing a clinic denies them from the procedure they chose that is best for them. John Kasich and Mike DeWine picked a fight with Ohio women and lost."

DeWine, who recently won the Republican party's nomination in the gubernatorial race to succeed Kasich, is an ardent abortion foe who defended the laws in court as Ohio Attorney General.

Ohio Right to Life President Michael Gonidakis released a statement that said it's "unfortunate that the Health Department believes that a clinic who has violated Ohio's health laws for numerous years deserves to be licensed and remain open."

"The Health Department has set a dangerous precedent that we fear will continue to put women and their children in harm's way," Gonidakis said.

Copeland said the Toledo clinic was able to perform abortions with medication during the weeks between the court decision and the license reinstatement.

She said a succession of abortion clinic regulations adopted since Kasich took office in 2011 has reduced the number of abortion clinics in Ohio from 16 to 8. Other Ohio metropolitan areas with abortion clinics include Akron, Cleveland, Columbus Cincinnati and Dayton, Copeland said.

Keeping the Toledo clinic open "will save the lives and well-being of countless people who otherwise would have been seriously harmed by the policies that John Kasich and Mike DeWine have pursued," said Copeland. "We are so relieved."