What the Arkansas abortion ban is really trying to do
On Tuesday, Arkansas passed one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country -- a move directly aimed at forcing (or, at the very least, encouraging) the conservative majority in the Supreme Court to reexamine Roe v. Wade.
In signing the legislation, which would ban abortions in all cases "except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency" Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson nodded to this broader goal.
"I will sign SB6 because of overwhelming legislative support and my sincere and long-held pro-life convictions," he said. "SB6 is in contradiction of binding precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law. I would have preferred the legislation to include the exceptions for rape and incest, which has been my consistent view, and such exceptions would increase the chances for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court."
The Arkansas bill is the first of its kind to pass in 2021 -- although South Carolina enacted a law last month that would ban abortions (except in the cases of rape, incest and the mother's life being endangered) once a heartbeat was detected via an ultrasound.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank, 19 state legislatures have introduced a total of 48 pieces of legislation that would lead to all or most abortions being banned in their state. Since 2019 there have been 11 so-called gestational bans passed by state legislatures -- although all of them have been blocked by judges as appeals are litigated.
The belief among Arkansas legislators is, clearly, that the near-total ban is just the sort of vehicle that the newly installed 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court could latch on to if they want to re-examine (or even overturn) Roe vs Wade, the landmark legislation in 1973 that made abortion legal in the United States.