Judge wants the Ohio Supreme Court to block the 2023 pro-abortion amendment

A Mahoning Valley judge wants to block Ohio’s 2023 pro-abortion amendment, arguing it infringes on his ability to grant or deny minors’ abortions when their parents oppose abortion.

Trumbull County Domestic Relations/Juvenile Division Court Judge David Engler asked the Ohio Supreme Court to block a portion or all of the amendment that the majority of voters – 57% – supported back in 2023, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

Engler, a Republican, filed the legal challenge on April 14, according to the public docket on the Ohio Supreme Court’s official website. In his challenge, Engler said that the pro-abortion language in the Ohio Constitution blocks him from weighing in on whether minors can be allowed to have abortions if their parents object to them.

“As a consequence of this constitutional amendment’s application, I am no longer able to perform a mandatory judicial function expressly assigned to the juvenile court by the General Assembly, and historically exercised by this court for decades,” according to the filing.

Under the measure Ohio voters passed, codified in Article 1, Section 22, “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions” on things like “abortion.”

“The State shall not, directly or indirectly, burden, penalize, prohibit, interfere with, or discriminate against either an individual’s voluntary exercise of this right or a person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right, unless the State demonstrates that it is using the least restrictive means to advance the individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care,” according to the text of the law.

The law also said that abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability.

Engler’s attempt is called a judicial bypass, and according to The Dispatch, Trumbull County judges had received an average of two judicial bypass requests per year before the constitutional amendment took effect. Engler’s legal challenge showed that since 2025, the judges have received no judicial bypass requests.

“I’m asking the Ohio Supreme Court to enjoin the abortion amendment and rewrite the ballot language, so the public will know that they are voting on removing juvenile court judges, and parents from the process of kids having abortions,” Engler wrote on Facebook, adding that the response to his lawsuit is up to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

“I’m asking the Ohio Supreme Court to enjoin [the] abortion amendment and rewrite the ballot language, so the public will know that they are voting on removing juvenile court judges, and parents from the process of kids having abortions,” Engler added.

Jessie Hill, an attorney who has challenged multiple Ohio abortion restrictions, told The Dispatch that the state’s abortion providers are following state law, Section 2919.121, which requires either parental consent or a judge’s approval before a minor can have an abortion. During her conversation with The Dispatch, Hill called the judge’s lawsuit unserious and deeply flawed.

“There are so many flaws with the legal theory,” she said. “There’s no basis in law for what this person is arguing.”

Engler doubled down on his approach in a subsequent Facebook post.

“Some friends and some strangers want to confuse my warning and legal fight with the notion that my efforts to protect young girls is far less important than a woman’s decision to abort the unborn,” the judge wrote. “My fight is simple. It is a constitutionally protected fundamental right to be a parent. Your belief that your right to have an abortion means that we should legislate away the role of a parent is selfish, radically socialist and legally wrong.”

Engler isn’t alone in his opposition to the abortion measure voters passed. The Columbus newspaper reported that Ohioans who oppose abortion are challenging the limits of the 2023 amendment through several proposed laws and legal challenges. Among them is Ohio Right to Life Executive Director Carrie Snyder.

“Judge Engler’s courage in revealing this constitutional conflict and look forward to the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling on this issue,” Snyder told The Dispatch.