Judge temporarily blocks Arkansas abortion laws
New restrictions would have closed Little Rock surgical clinic
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A federal judge blocked three new abortion restrictions in Arkansas minutes before they were set to take effect Wednesday, including a measure that opponents say would likely force the state’s only surgical abortion clinic to close.
U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted a 14-day temporary restraining order shortly before midnight Tuesday. The 159-page ruling blocks the state from enforcing the new laws, including a measure prohibiting the procedure 18 weeks into pregnancy. The blocked laws also included a requirement that doctors performing abortions be board-certified or board-eligible in obstetrics and gynecology. An official with a Little Rock clinic that performs surgical abortions says it has one physician who meets that requirement, but he only works there a few days every other month.
Baker found that if that surgical clinic closed, about 1,800 women a year — or 66% of those seeking to terminate a pregnancy in Arkansas — would be denied an abortion.
She also wrote that the restriction “provides no discernable medical benefit” to women and questioned lawmakers’ intent in passing the law, known as Act 700.
“This, coupled with the record evidence that Arkansas has enacted more than 25 laws regulating abortion access in the state, including 12 enacted in 2019 alone, gives the court pause with respect to the purpose of Act 700,” she wrote.
The Arkansas bans are among a number of sweeping abortion restrictions enacted in Southern and Midwestern states. Republican lawmakers in those states are emboldened by the prospect of the U.S. Supreme Court revisiting its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The restrictions include an Alabama law that would make performing an abortion a felony in most cases.
Baker also blocked a law prohibiting doctors from performing an abortion if it’s being sought because the fetus has Down syndrome. For that law and the 18-week abortion ban, Baker found that both would unconstitutionally restrict abortion before the point of viability.