[ad_1]
Arkansas has passed new law banning nearly all abortions in the state, a sweeping move that supporters hope will force the U.S. Supreme Court to review Roe v Wade, but opponents vow to block before it does not come into effect later this year.
Republican state governor Asa Hutchinson said he was signing the bill because of his “overwhelming legislative support and my sincere, long-standing beliefs in life.”
Hutchinson has signed several major abortion restrictions into law since taking office in 2015, but he had expressed concerns about the bill, which only allows the procedure to save the mother’s life and does not provide for exceptions for people impregnated with an act of rape or incest. He reiterated these concerns when announcing his decision.
“(The ban) is at odds with binding US Supreme Court precedents, but the intent of the legislation is to pave the way for the Supreme Court to overturn current case law,” he said in a statement. press release issued by his office. “I would have preferred the legislation to include the exceptions for rape and incest, which has always been my view, and such exceptions would increase the chances of a review by the United States Supreme Court.”
Arkansas is one of at least 14 states where lawmakers have proposed a total abortion ban this year.
The bans have been pushed by Republicans who want to force the Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 Roe v Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Conservatives believe the court is more open to overturning the decision following Donald Trump’s three court appointments.
Arkansas law will not come into effect until 90 days after the adjournment of the session of the majority Republican legislature. This means that it can only be applied this summer at the earliest. Abortion rights advocates have said they plan to challenge the ban in court before that date.
The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union called the ban “cruel and unconstitutional.”
“Governor Hutchinson: We’ll see you in court,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the Arkansas ACLU.
“This is politics at its worst,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “At a time when people need economic aid and basic safety precautions, dismantling access to abortion is cruel, dangerous and blatantly unfair.”
Arkansas has some of the toughest abortion measures in the United States, and two years ago Hutchinson enacted a measure that would ban the procedure if the Roe decision was overturned. Another measure signed by Hutchinson in 2019 banning abortions after 18 weeks of pregnancy is on hold due to a legal challenge.
Several other restrictions are still under consideration in the legislature, including one approved by the Senate a day earlier that would require a woman with an abortion to go through an ultrasound first.
Another sweeping abortion ban was enacted by the governor of South Carolina last month, but was quickly blocked by a federal judge due to a court challenge by Planned Parenthood. Alabama enacted a near-total abortion ban in 2019 which has been blocked due to legal challenges.
[ad_2]
Source link