House panel clears abortion measure

A bill prohibiting abortion in Arkansas, if the U.S. Supreme Court allows such a ban, cleared a House committee on Tuesday after another round of emotional testimony.

Sponsored by Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, Senate Bill 149 would go further than the law in place at the time of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade by allowing abortion only to save the life of a mother during a medical emergency.

Before the high court’s 1973 ruling, a 1969 Arkansas law allowed abortions when a doctor determined continuing the pregnancy would endanger the life of the woman, that there was a substantial risk that the child would be born with a grave mental or physical defect or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest reported to a prosecutor within seven days of the crime.

The new ban under SB149 would go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned or an amendment is added to the U.S. Constitution allowing states to ban abortion.

The Arkansas ban wouldn’t prohibit the administration of contraceptive drugs “before the time a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing.”

Similar “trigger laws” are in place in North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana and Mississippi, Rapert said.

Rapert said Arkansans expressed their opinion on the matter in 1988, when they passed Amendment 68 to the state constitution. The amendment says the “policy of Arkansas is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution.”

Since then, the Legislature has passed several laws restricting abortion, he noted.

“The state of Arkansas is clearly a pro-life state,” Rapert said.

The House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee advanced SB149 in a voice vote Tuesday in which at least one dissenting vote could be heard. The bill passed 29-6 in the Senate last week and now goes to the full House.

According to an article in the Arkansas Democrat, 793 legal abortions were done in the state the year before the Roe v. Wade ruling.

In 2017, the state had 3,249 abortions, according to the Department of Health.