Groups advocating for professional social workers and abortion rights said they have succeeded in forcing a small Ohio city to significantly narrow its ban on conducting or recommending abortions and so have ended their legal challenge.

The lawsuit by the National Association of Social Workers and the Abortion Fund of Ohio argued that the law, passed in May 2021, represented an "extraordinarily broad" infringement on the constitutional rights of due process and free speech. The groups' lawyers at the ACLU of Ohio and Democracy Forward further alleged the ban violated Ohio’s home-rule provisions.

The city of Lebanon, in southwest Ohio, opted to revise the law rather than defend it in court. Enforcement had been placed on hold while that work took place.

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Opponents said they dropped their lawsuit Jan. 12 after provisions were removed that made aiding and abetting an abortion a crime, and the law was further clarified to assure that providing transportation, instructions, money or abortion doula services, including counseling, were still allowed.

Lebanon’s ban was one of four that cropped up around Ohio in 2021, part of a national effort to ban abortion "one city at a time" by the Texas-based Sanctuary Cities of the Unborn organization overseen by Mark Lee Dickson.

It was the first local ban to be challenged nationally after a leak revealed the U.S. Supreme Court planned to overturn Roe v. Wade. The court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization energized abortion opponents' state and local efforts to outlaw the procedure.

"This litigation exposes local ordinance bans as dangerous acts of political theater, and our lawsuit demanded accountability for the logistical and legal nightmare Lebanon’s City Council created," Maggie Scotece, interim executive director of the abortion fund, formerly Women Have Options-Ohio, said in a statement. "This win is so unique in the context of our post-Dobbs legal landscape, establishing a strong, united front against these heinous attacks."

Dickson, a Southern Baptist minister who also directs Right to Life East Texas, said the revisions to Lebanon's ban were of little consequence to the underlying goal of the law: outlawing abortion in the city of about 20,000 beginning at conception.

"Abortion remains illegal in Lebanon, so this is a great victory for Ohio," Dickson said. "It’s worth pointing out that the opposition claims that we were doing more than we were actually doing. The fact that we clarified our position does not take away from the abortion ban."

The Ohio opponent groups argued that, despite Lebanon having no abortion clinics, the sweeping ban appeared to require social workers not to discuss abortion when counseling pregnant clients, in "conflict with social workers’ ethical obligation to promote the client’s self-determination."

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The social workers’ association took the position that reproductive freedom is a human right.

According to the Texas anti-abortion group’s website, 65 cities and two counties across the U.S. have so far passed similar abortion bans. Dickson said the group will continue its work this year in New Mexico, where the Democratic attorney general has moved to nullify similar local abortion bans, as well attempt new inroads in Nebraska, Kansas and California.

"There is still a lot to do, even though Roe has been overturned, to promote abortion-free communities," he said.

A federal judge has placed Ohio's statewide ban on most abortions on hold as a constitutional challenge is heard. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost has appealed to the Republican-controlled Ohio Supreme Court to block the federal judge's order.

The Minnesota Senate began debate Friday on a bill to write broad protections for abortion rights into state statutes, which would make it difficult for future courts to roll back.

Democratic legislative leaders have fast-tracked the bill as one of their top priorities for the 2023 session — in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last summer to reverse Roe v. Wade. While a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision known as Doe v. Gomez held that the state constitution protects abortion rights, sponsors want to make sure that those protections remain in force no matter who sits on future courts.

Hundreds of people packed the halls outside the Senate chamber ahead of the debate. Abortion rights supporters chanted, "Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Abortion bans have got to go," while opponents sang the hymn "Amazing Grace."

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The authors have dubbed the bill the "PRO Act," short for "Protect Reproductive Actions." It would establish that "every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health" including abortion and contraception.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz hopes to sign it before the end of the month. The House passed it last week 69-65 with all Republicans opposed. Rep. Gene Pelowski, of Winona, was the only Democrat to vote no.

Senate Democratic leaders said ahead of Friday's debate that they had the votes to send it to the governor. They hold only a one-seat majority so they couldn't afford to lose a single vote, but party discipline held firm on a pair of early procedural votes.

"What Minnesotans are afraid of is to see, potentially, that what happened at the federal level with our U.S. Supreme Court could eventually, in some future time, happen here in Minnesota," Democratic Sen. Jennifer McEwen, of Duluth, the chief Senate author, said as she led off the debate. "The decisions of our courts, the upholding of our fundamental human rights, are only as strong as the judges who uphold them."

Republican lawmakers, who complain that Minnesota has some of the fewest restrictions on abortion in the country, tried unsuccessfully as the bill went through the committee process to attach "guard rails" such as bans on third-trimester abortions. They teed up a series of similar amendments Friday.

"Today we are not just codifying Roe v. Wade or Doe v. Gomez, as the author has indicated, we are enacting the most extreme bill in the country," said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks.

Minnesota had several restrictions in place, including a 24-hour waiting period and parental notification requirements, until a district court judge last summer declared them unconstitutional. A separate bill making its way through the Legislature would strike those restrictions from the statute books in case that ruling is reversed on appeal. That bill would also repeal statistical reporting requirements that the judge left in force.

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Anti-abortion groups say the bills, assuming they're enacted, will put Minnesota on the "extreme side" of the abortion rights spectrum.

"Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach," Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.

But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are "incredibly rare" and almost always happen under "very tragic" circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother's health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.

The Minnesota Department of Health's latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later.