Judge David Engler

David L. Engler, a Trumbull County Domestic Relations/Juvenile Division Court judge, filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court seeking to stop abortions in the state because the 2023 constitutional amendment legalizing them eliminated guardrails for minors.

“A 15-year-old girl in Ohio cannot get a tattoo without a parent present, but she can now obtain an abortion with no parental involvement at all,” said Engler, a pro-life Republican elected in 2024. Engler is running in the GOP primary for a seat on the 11th District Court of Appeals.

Engler filed the petition for a writ of mandamus Tuesday against Attorney General Dave Yost, Secretary of State Frank LaRose in their official capacities — both Republicans who oppose abortion — and the Ohio Ballot Board, which approves ballot language for statewide constitutional amendments.

Engler’s lawsuit states that the reproductive rights amendment, passed by voters in November 2023 and enacted a month later as Article I, Section 22 of the Ohio Constitution, removes parental consent requirements for minors seeking abortions as well as effectively removing a state law that gives juvenile court judges the authority to grant abortions to minors if petitioned through a judicial-bypass hearing.

Engler said: “My lawsuit asks the Ohio Supreme Court to stop the enforcement of the abortion amendment until the language can be corrected and voted on again. Parents have always had the right to know and the right to protect their children. Judicial-bypass hearings have been a safeguard for decades. Eliminating both parental consent and judicial oversight leaves minors unprotected.”

Engler wants the state’s high court to correct the “unintended consequences of the amendment’s enforcement.”

In an affidavit attached to the petition for a writ, Engler wrote that during the five years before 2025, the Trumbull County Juvenile Court saw about two judicial-bypass petitions per year. Since then, there’s been none.

Engler wrote: “This cessation is not the result of any change in court procedure, policy or judicial discretion. Instead, the cessation of judicial-bypass proceedings is the direct result of the” reproductive rights law.

The law reads: “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on: contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”

Engler wrote: “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.”

He added: “The harm resulting from this development is institutional and constitutional in nature” because the “judicial office I hold has been stripped of statutory and historically exercised judicial function;” the loss didn’t occur through amendment of Article IV of the Ohio Constitution, which assigns judicial powers, “but by implication through a separate constitutional provision; and the result is an impairment of the jurisdiction and constitutional authority of the juvenile court.”

Abortion Forward Executive Director Kellie Copeland said: “You can tell it’s an election year. Activist Judge David Engler is filing a politically frivolous lawsuit that is an inappropriate, cynical attempt to eliminate reproductive rights in Ohio. He is trying to undermine the 57% of voters who passed the Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment in 2023.”

Copeland added: “Judge Engler has explicitly promoted statements by anti-abortion organizations in an effort to advance his political career. Ohio voters said what they said. Reproductive freedom is the law of the land. Judges must respect that.”

Engler’s lawsuit seeks a declaration that the reproductive rights law “is unenforceable to the extent it is construed or applied to eliminate or interfere with juvenile court jurisdiction over judicial-bypass proceeding” and that it “must be harmonized with Article IV to preserve such jurisdiction.”

Engler wants the Ohio Supreme Court to order “ballot language that does not mislead voters regarding the effects of a proposed amendment and this court polices ballot language for accuracy and transparency.”

Engler wrote in the lawsuit that “voters were not informed that Article I, Section 22 would eliminate judicial-bypass proceedings or strip juvenile courts of jurisdiction, constituting a material omission that renders the amendment unenforceable as applied to the elimination of judicial-bypass proceedings.”