The Trump administration Department of Justice is urging an appeals court to uphold an Ohio law banning abortions based on a Down syndrome diagnosis, saying the law affirms the “integrity of the medical profession” and protects individuals from discrimination based on a disability.
At issue is a 2017 Ohio law prohibiting doctors from performing abortions if the doctor “has knowledge that the pregnant woman is seeking the abortion, in whole or in part” due to a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis.
Although a three-judge panel on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law in a 2-1 decision last year, the full Sixth Circuit took up the case in what is known as an en banc hearing.
It is known as the Down Syndrome Non-Discrimination Act
“Many women whose unborn children are diagnosed with Down syndrome receive the message that those children would be better off never being born,” says the Justice Department’s friend-of-the-court brief, filed Tuesday. “… The Antidiscrimination Law promotes Ohio’s contrary message that people with Down syndrome have lives worth living, lives worth protecting. The validity of such a message is evident, especially, when one considers ‘the once-pervasive practice of involuntarily sterilizing those with mental disabilities,’ which ‘the judiciary itself endorsed.’
“Just as a State may reasonably ‘fear that…
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