Arkansas Supreme Court Continues Considering Arguments in Abortion Amendment Lawsuit

On Friday the Arkansas Attorney General’s office and the group Arkansans for Limited Government both submitted briefs with the Arkansas Supreme Court as part of the lawsuit surrounding a proposed abortion amendment.

The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would change the constitution to prevent the State of Arkansas from restricting abortion during the first five months of pregnancy — which is more extreme than Roe v. Wade and would allow thousands of elective abortions on healthy women and unborn children every year.

The amendment does not contain any medical licensing or health and safety standards for abortion, and it does not require abortions to be performed by a physician or in a licensed medical facility.

It automatically nullifies all state laws that conflict with the amendment — jeopardizing basic abortion regulations like parental-consent and informed-consent requirements.

The measure also contains various exceptions that would permit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases.

Last month, Arkansans for Limited Government submitted petition signatures to place the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. Bringing the amendment up for a vote would require at least 90,704 valid signatures from registered voters.

However, Secretary of State John Thurston disqualified every petition filed to place the abortion measure on the ballot, because the sponsors failed to provide affidavits that state law requires concerning paid petition canvassers.

By law, ballot initiative sponsors must file a statement confirming that each paid canvassers was given a copy of the state’s initiative and referenda handbook as well as an explanation of relevant state laws before he or she solicited petition signatures. The sponsors backing the abortion measure failed to file this specific documentation when they submitted the petitions for the abortion amendment. That prompted the Secretary of State to reject all of the petitions.

Arkansans for Limited Government subsequently filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Thurston.

In its briefs filed Friday, Arkansans for Limited Government reiterated its belief that the group complied with state law and that the Secretary of State’s rejection was unlawful.

The Arkansas Attorney General’s office filed briefs explaining how the abortion group failed to comply with state law, and also provided supplemental evidence on Monday that the Secretary of State did not treat Arkansans for Limited Government differently from other ballot initiative sponsors.

A ruling in the case is expected sometime in the near future.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.