Recently we wrote about how 22 states filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Arkansas’ law generally prohibiting abortions performed because the baby may have Down Syndrome.
Earlier this month U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman and U.S. Reps. Rick Crawford, Bruce Westerman, Steve Womack, and French Hill filed an amicus brief in support of the law as well.
In 2019 the Arkansas Legislature passed Act 619 prohibiting abortion of an unborn baby solely because the child may have Down Syndrome.
At the time, Family Council estimated that Act 619 could save upwards of 100 unborn children in Arkansas every single year.
The ACLU and the state’s only surgical abortion facility promptly sued the State of Arkansas to have the law struck down. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently blocked Arkansas from enforcing the law.
In April Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the nation’s highest court to take up the case.
Now Arkansas’ congressional delegation and their colleagues in Washington are asking the supreme court to uphold this good, pro-life law as well.
Among other things, the brief argues that Arkansas’s law intends to combat discrimination against unborn children with disabilities. It says that an abortion performed because a baby might have Down Syndrome amounts to eugenics, and it argues that Congress has a longstanding interest in protecting Americans with disabilities.
“Having Down syndrome—or any other disability—’doesn’t make anyone less human,'” the brief says. “Arkansas recognizes that and so should this Court.”
This could be a pivotal case, because it has the potential to reshape how federal judges treat state abortion laws like Act 619 of 2019.
It could give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn past rulings like Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
That would be a huge victory for pro-lifers everywhere in America.
